The Catholic Radio music festival in Estelí

The local catholic music station in the north of Nicaragua organised a song contest and festival of traditional music held, at the baseball stadium in Estelí. We’ve been meaning to get ourselves to the stadium, but imagined it would be for a baseball game rather than a religious gathering. It was a little odd to be surrounded by so many people wearing their newly purchased merchandise – t-shirts featuring the holy virgin and the motto, ‘seeking the truth’. But it was also a nice family event with lots of food stalls, kids running around, and groups waiting to go on stage, largely dressed in cowboy hats clutching accordions or guitars. We entered the raffle, which was a bit pricey at around 80 pence per ticket, but we were excited at the prospect of winning the excellent prizes of either a bullock or a heifer. We weren’t entirely sure how we would tend to either of them in the hotel should we have struck it lucky, but we’re off to the countryside to visit a cow-less friend at the weekend and we knew she would have been delighted had we arrived with either. However, this all remained hypothetical. The first prize to be drawn for was the heifer and we didn’t win. The draw for the bullock wasn’t to be until later in the afternoon. A combination of the speakers being turned up far too loud, the singers warbling largely out of tune and the electricity intermittently cutting out, meant that we ran out of steam and left before the bullock draw. However, we did leave our hotel address on the raffle ticket stub, so just maybe a bullock will be coming our way some time this week.Sheltering from the sun in the stands with our English friend Jon

We concluded that although the event was an interesting spectacle, we’re more at home at the Sandinista gatherings with their black and red party flags, rousing revolutionary songs and a generous supply of rum and beer. A particularly passionate congregation cheering on their church's performance