At last, the main man, Saint Jerónimo himself. The image of the saint is followed by a band, which is seemingly present in every religious procession I've seen in Latin America. This one included two tubas (not pictured). The folks accompanying Jerónimo take the event seriously, and include many members of the church. However, according to much of the rest of the groups in the parade, Jerónimo liked to drink a lot and so they use the occasion to break out the beer and be jolly.

Queens of the Festival

One aspect of the procession for Saint Jerónimo that I hadn't expect was the abundance of drag queens. There were quite a few marching along with the bulls, boys, and other people just tagging along with the parade. My friend Belkis said that people used to come to the festival to be cured of various health problems. Homosexuals were sometimes brought to "be cured" and it seems that since then, it's become a tradition to have drag queens at the event.

Da Bulls

Almost all of the groups of bull-beating groups had group t-shirts.

Raging Bulls

San Jeronimo is honored every 29th of September with this procession in the street. They leave the main cathedral and around town. This procession consists of groups of teenage and young adult boys trying to contain a raging bull. The bull costume is sort of like a turtle shell covered in colorful streamers with sharp horns on one end. The bull trashes around wildly as they move down the street and the rest of the guys try to not get stabbed and hit the bull with sticks. I estimate there were about 30 bulls at this procession.

Ring My Bell

Ringing the bell for Saint Jerónimo, high atop the cathedral.

Inside of the Cathedral

Here is a picture of me with Lake Managua and the volcano Momotombo in the background. I'll write more later. I just wanted to get this blog off the ground.