Jesuit Missions

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From the ´almost´ tropical forest of Iguazu, on an EXTREMELY tropical bus, we headed for Posadas. Much earlier than anticipated (we thought we wouldn´t get this till Bolivia) we experienced our first bus breakdown. As we waited on the roadside in the sun (same temperature as the bus) we watched the many mechanics (passengers!) help out and get the bus going again. Not sure what they did but we made it the rest of the way,

The only reason we picked to go to this town was to see the Jesuit Missons but it´s actually a lovely town to stay in in it´s own right. It sits on the Parana River (other side reaching Paraguay) and has a mediterranean feel (although I think we´re going to get repetitive in that phrase) to it.

Night time the river front turns into a place for families to park up their cars, setup camp on the pavement and have a picnic, drink Mate (a very popular drink that we are yet to try). The whole strip comes to life. It a really nice paved strip the whole way along (well as far as we were bothered to walk).

Part of our love for the place was the hostel we stayed in, Hostel Vuela El Pez, very quaint, old bulding with a courtyard that they were slowly renovating. The guys that ran the place were so nice and friendly AND sooo laid back that we had to force our payment onto them on the last day.

The missions are in a few places around Posadas. 1 hour away on the Argentine side are 2 missions.. St Ignacio and St Ana. The Jesuits came to Argentina in the 1700s and were expelled around 1770 (?). The missions around this area were successful and thrived until the Jesuit´s expulsion. This was due to the fact that they provided the indigenous people (the Guarani) a safe haven from capture and slavery and ran the missions in a way that had many cultural similarities to the Guarani. There are differing views on the missions but one fact is that there were only 2 priests per mssion so they must have been highly self regulated and a certain sense of appeal to stay.

The missions you see are ruins but still give a very good sense of how the community would have run. In St Ignacio we had a very good guide who told us about the history. This stood us in good stead for viewing the others off our own back.

The heat at St Ignacio was intense and we were hopping from shady spot to shady spot. We decided that we´d still like to see the other mission in this area (St Ana) since it´s on the way home. We got off the bus and pootled the 3k up the road to see it. As we arrived, so did the storms. Fork lightning and loud thunder. We sat undercover and waited for it to pass (counting the time between the flash to roar). As it left and the rain subsided we trotted out to have a look around. Cheeky storm though tricked us and decided to pass by again just as we were on our 3k trip back to the bus. We arrived at the stop absolutley drenched. Unlike our bus to Posadas the air-con on this worked very well and we shivered all the way home.

The next day we set out for Paraguay to the Missions at Trinidad - these having been recommended as the best in the area, in terms of detail remaining.

It´s very easy to get to Paraguay as it´s just across the river. So you get on a boat and in 15 mins you´re there! - well that´s the way it works for most. For us it was a little more exciting than anticipated as when we arrived at Paraguay they wouldn´t let Gordon in. He was being clever with his 2 passports - arrived in Argentina on Australian but Maltese doesn´t need visa for paraguay. The woman wouldn´t let him use his maltese one without an exit stamp from Argentina. So we got the boat straight back - then, in an amazingly explanative but very pigeon Spanish Gordon explained our predicament to the Argentine control. They stamped us back in and back out again straight away ' and off we toddled back to paraguay! luckily the boat only cost 125p each each way!

We saw the missions that were much more well preserved as promised and saw a town of cheap goods at the port (I am sooooooo gutted that I have no room for shopping and 5 months yet to carry my stuff). It was very striking that just across a small river life can be so different. Posadas has quite a well-to.do feel about it and Paraguay very clearly did not. We loved the colourful houses and rickety old buses with stereo-type South American music (and a shrine set up on the front dashboard by the driver). It was all very cheerful.

On leaving we missed the boat by 1 minute (it left 20 minutes earlier than advertised), so got on the bus and came over the bridge with the hundreds of Argentinians who popped over to buy their bargains (and a lot for on-sale I´d say - Paraguay is so much cheaper). It was very easy (well Gordon had to do some explaining again to the confused argentinian immigration when he wanted to come in on his Australian passport) and we were dropped a few streets from the hostel.

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Photos

Orginal floor tiles
Difference ones in different rooms

Entrance to houses
where the colonised locals lived

Row of houses
People lived in one roomed houses with a fire to cook out on the front veranda