Agua Santa

Next to the hot mineral baños(baths) that give this town its name, the biggest tourist draw may be La Nuestra Senora de Agua Santa, called Agua Santa for short. She is the local Virgin Mary at the downtown Basilica in Baños who has been performing miracles and miracle cures for several hundred years.

Here she is. You can light a candle and say a prayer and many were. She will do an even bigger business in the next several days. The cathedral is all about Agua Santa. On both sides of the sanctuary are giant paintings that recount miracles in the past several centuries. Most involve people saved from a deadly accident by a mysterious hand, or the town of Baños being saved from the eruption of the volcano on the north side of town when Agua Santa was paraded through the streets. In the next post I will show some of my favorite miracles of Agua Santa.