Ruins of Ujarras
UUjarrás are the ruins of one of the oldest churches in Costa Rica, Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Limpia Concepción, which was built in the 1580s during early colonial times.Local legend has it that a painting of the Virgin was found in a box by native Huetar Indian fishermen who brought it to the village, and a church was thus built on this site by the locals to commemorate the Virgin. Another version of this legend is that an Indian fisherman found a box containing the image of the Virgin Mary and the Spanish colonial church named Nuestra Senora de la Limpia Concepcion was thus built around that image as it could not be moved elsewhere. Initially a hermitage made of straw was built between 1575 and 1580 and indigenous people called the image of the Virgin Mary “The Queen of the Valleys”. Over the years the image attained fame due to many miracles that it is said to have performed for the villagers.
It is also said that when the English pirate Henry Morgan attacked the village in 1666, the Virgin Mary came to their rescue to fight off the attack.