The story
Fiestas Patronales de El Castillo in El Castillo
El Castillo, the small Rio San Juan River town beneath its historic Spanish colonial fortress, honors San Jose de la Montana on March 19 with a solemn Mass and procession through the main streets, and separately celebrates the Immaculate Conception of Mary from November 29 to December 8, with December 8 marking the solemn feast day.
El Castillo, a small town on the San Juan River in southeastern Nicaragua, is best known to travelers for the imposing stone fortress that gives it its name, El Castillo de la Inmaculada Concepcion, built by the Spanish in the seventeenth century to defend the river route to Lake Nicaragua from pirate incursions.