The pandemic slows down the sinuous path of pilgrims to the sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadalupe

501 years ago, when Hernán Cortés made landfall in Veracruz, he was accompanied by 500 soldiers, 16 horses, and a banner with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

More than half a millennium later, after bloody confrontations, proclamations of independence, massacres, wars and other historical deeds, this Virgin continues to establish herself as the patron saint of Mexico.

It has its largest cult center in the Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe, in the capital.

Every year, between December 10 and 13, it is estimated that up to eight million Mexicans pass through the temple to venerate the Virgin.

However, this Friday, with a background pandemic that has left more than 110,000 dead in the country, the basilica is closed, and the police deployed in the surroundings to avoid crowds tripled the number of men with whom Cortés disembarked In America.

The street closures have plunged the surroundings of the Tepeyac hill into silence.

There are motorized police, vans, checkpoints and foot patrols everywhere.

There are more street sweepers than pilgrims, and they seem the only ones in charge of breaking the unusual silence of Mexico City as they pile up the scant waste found in the street, mostly made up of withered petals and dust.

The Guadalupe road, where millions of people parade every year, is deserted, only a few groups of homeless people can be seen and a speaker cries out to no one about the benefits of physical exercise to improve health from the entrance of the Plaza de Artesanías market.

At the gates of the market there is a stall with candles on offer at 25 pesos (just over a dollar) or three squares of the Virgin for 100 (approximately four dollars).

The engineer of the offers is Carlos Rodríguez Moreno.

There are barely a few minutes until the clock strikes 9 in the morning.

"At this hour, there is not even a pin on the road [in normal conditions]," he says.

However, with what has been sold today "it only comes for breakfast and lunch."

And he adds: "It's very sad."

Sellers of images, rosaries and all kinds of Guadalupana paraphernalia find their August in December: "With what we sell at this time we can last three or four months, until April."

This year it will not be the case.

Not a car circulates along the Calzada de Los Misterios, on one of the sides of the temple, and only a few souls.

At the gates of a public parking lot, three guards respond to a curt greeting: "We don't open until next Monday, we are closed."

Normally, they say that on these dates the parking lot does not have free spaces, but today it is deserted.

A little further around a corner is the business, also of virginal images, of Aurelio "just", who curses without blasphemies this year that is coming to an end.

"We have not sold even 20% of normal," he calculates while explaining that since the basilica is closed, they no longer expect anything from this Friday.

To survive this year, he had to improvise a store in his family home.

He sells eggs, sausages or milk, but it is a recurring escape route in his neighborhood and he barely gives them to "survive".

"If this year the covid does not kill us, hunger will kill us," he says.

Luis Aranda is a police officer in Mexico City and although he has never been a pilgrim to the basilica, he has participated in operations in other years.

While drinking a coffee to go next to some fences that make up one of the innumerable checkpoints, he ensures that the deployed device is nourished by around 1,500 agents.

"Other years it was more difficult, many thieves take the opportunity to come to rob the pilgrims," ​​he says.

However, he admits that this year the "monotony" has him on the verge of boredom.

Independence, the Day of the Dead and now the pilgrimages to honor the Virgin of Guadalupe in her basilica join the myriad of events canceled because of the pandemic around the world.

On the contrary, there is still a space for hope in the most devoted hearts, such as that of Elvira Ortega, a worker at the La Guadalupana store, where religious images share space with

and miniature replicas of Teotihuacan temples.

Ortega assures that the Virgin intercedes for everyone, and believes that the incarnation of the miracle came from the Dominican Republic this Thursday, when a buyer "made the day" by buying souvenirs of the Saint "for his mother."

The miraculous buyer took a gold bracelet, images and a silver-carved Holy Family among other products.

"The Virgin will take care of him and protect him," Ortega begs.

He maintains that the pandemic has hit everyone, “Spain too” and that he has equaled us, but he has faith that the Virgin will intercede to help everyone in the face of the health emergency.

With the blind faith shared by Christians, Mujahideen and even the most atheists, he assures that everything will be solved: "We are going out."