SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A unique Holy Week tradition is drawing thousands of Catholic pilgrims to a small adobe church in the hills of northern New Mexico, in a journey on foot through desert badlands to reach a spiritual wellspring.
For generations, people of the Upper Rio Grande Valley and beyond have walked to reach El Santuario de Chimayó to commemorate Good Friday.
Pilgrims, some walking for days, were on track to arrive Friday amid a forecast of cool temperatures and sprinkles of rain.
Some travelers are lured by an indoor well of dirt believed to have curative powers. Throughout the year, they leave behind crutches, braces and canes in acts of prayer for infirm children and others, and as evidence that miracles happen.
Easter week visitors file through an adobe archway and narrow indoor passages to find a crucified Nuestro Seañor de Esquipulas at the main altar. According to local lore, the crucifix was found on the site in the early 1800s, a continent away from its analog at a basilica in the Guatemalan town of Esquipulas.
A spiritual place
Chimayó, known for its artisan weavings and chile crops, rests high above the Rio Grande Valley and opposite the national defense laboratory at Los Alamos that sprang up in the race to develop the first atomic weapon.
The iconic adobe church at Chimayó was cast from local mud at the sunset of Spanish rule in the Americas in the early 1800s, on a site already held sacred by Native Americans.
Set amid narrow streets, curio shops and brooks that …