This is a small church a few miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is known as Chimayo. I've been here twice and each time there were no crowds. The locals say that the place is overwhelmed each year at Easter. Thousands come to pray at the site of a "milagro" (miracle) that occurred here several years ago.
Milagros are also small silver sculptures representing different parts of the human body like this cross with milagros covering it. It's a very unassuming church and grounds but beautifully tended. The architecture is very typical of Catholic churches at the time it was founded between 1814 and 1816.
There is a small pit in a dirt floor in a small room attached to the side of the main building. There, people can gather some of the dirt and put it in small ornate boxes that are sold at a nearby gift shop. The soil is said to have extraordinary healing powers. After I collected some I went outside to find a man digging up soil behind the church to replinish the pit. I would think that if that has been going on over the years there should be very large open pit nearby but I found none. Is that part of the milagro?
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