The municipality of San Juan de Oriente was founded in 1585. It was called San Juan de los Platos because they made clay dishes to be used during religious festivals in the region. The Nicoya and Potosme tribes lived here and spoke the languageNáhuatl. The colonial style church was constructed in 1612 by Gervasio Gallegos de Galacia and Juan de Bracamonte y Peñaranda.
Geography
San Juan de Oriente is 45 km south of the Nicaraguan capital Managua. It possesses shoreline along Laguna de Apoyo a saltwater volcanic lagoon.
Like most of the department of Masaya, the economy in San Juan de Oriente is heavily based around artisans. The specialty in San Juan de Oriente is ceramics. Many ceramic makers have studied advanced methods in Spain and there are several with international accolades for their work. Styles range from Precolumbian to flora and fauna to geometric.
Entertainment
San Juan de Oriente is a rather small town with limited entertainment options. There is a bar at the entrance that is popular with the locals as well as a pool hallat the center of town.
Transportation
Some of the bus routes to and from San Juan de Oriente can be found at Mercado Roberto Huembes in Managua. Sa Juan de Oriente is approximately one and a half hours by bus in an ordinary route and one hour in an express bus. One can also find buses to San Juan de Oriente from Granada. These buses originate from a bus station near the Mercado Municipal.
Fiestas Patronales
The patron saint festival in San Juan de Oriente celebrates the birth of John the Baptist on the week of June 24. The celebration consists of many processions with statues of John the Baptist, fireworks, and most famous of all "chilillo" a dance/sport where two "chinegros" use dried bovine penises fashioned in the form of a saber complete with leather handguard to whip their opponent. After a few seconds somebody in the costume of a yegüita enters between the two people ending the bout. While no winners or losers are declared, the hard whipping does leave marks or scars.
Infrastructure and communication
Electricity is supplied from the Managuan power grid and is therefore subject to same blackout problems that Managua has. Water service is supplied by a plant across the carretera in the municipality of Catarina. They take turns with water access, thus each town has water every other day. Conventional landline telephone is provided by Enitel, the nationaltelephone company. The two cellphone companies in Nicaragua, Claro and Movistar, have extensive coverage in San Juan de Oriente. A new health clinic was completed in August 2006.
