Chickens in Church?

When I was told the church in Santo Domingo had chickens in it, I didn't really see the big deal. After all, when I was I'm Ghana there were chickens in church quite frequently. Chickens and goats would wander around the benches almost every Sunday. However, this was something entirely different.

When you walk into the massive church in Santo Domingo, there is a huge chicken coop high above eye level. It has beautiful carvings around it of design as well as of chickens on either side of the coop opening. When you look in the middle, through a glass opening, there sits a chicken and a hen on the opposite side of the church as the alter. Yes, real ones.

You see, as the story goes there was a father and son completing the Camino together. While in town, the boy was set up for a crime he did not commit when someone placed something of value in his bag. He was caught the next day and sentenced to be hanged. The father pleaded but was unsuccessful. The following day he saw his son was still alive hanging there, and he went to ask for him to be let down since this was clearly a miracle. When he asked the Judge to have his son back, the judge replied, "Your son is no more alive then this chicken I am eating..." and with that the drumstick in his hand started clucking and came to life. The boy was let down and ever since the town of Santo Domingo keeps chickens in their church.

The picture I took of the coop didn't come out to well, but here is a picture of the church.

This morning I walked from Santo Domingo to Belorado... About 23km. It wasn't the most beautiful of walks since we were pretty close to the highway the whole day. I am almost to Burgos, a city of about 170,000. I'm thinking of spending 2 nights there, maybe even one in a hotel, instead of a hostel with about 50 bunk beds in all directions like I have been lately. When I hit the city, I'll be about 300km down with 500km to go.

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