Blogs from San Ignacio, Misiones, Argentina, South America - page 2

In the weeks before coming to Argentina, Iguazu Falls was a big subject of debate. Eva really wanted to see them; I wasn't sure if I wanted to go out of my way just for falling water. Eva won the debate. Not only that, but as she talked about them, I was surprised to remember that I had heard of them before. Some of you may recall the 1988 historical movie, "The Mission," about a Jesuit mission amongst South American Indians. Do you recall the opening scene in the movie when the priest, strapped to a cross, was sent over a waterfall by unrepentant natives? That scene was set at Iguazu. Although the movie was fictional, there were in fact several Jesuit reductions, settlements for "educating" the indigenous people, operating near the Iguazu Falls area in ... read more

... nach 2 Naechten in Iguazu gings dann weiter Richtung Salta- also vom Osten Argentiniens in den Westen. Hab dann noch einen kleinen Zwichenstop in San Ignacio eingelegt. San I. ist ein kleines vertraeumtes Dorf, in dem es eigentlich nicht viel zu sehen gibt. Ausser ein paar Ruinen einer alten Jesuitenmission aus dem 16.Jhd. Ich bin der einzigste, der hier aus dem Bus aussteigt. Mitten in der Pampa. Die Strassen haben hier keine Namen, niemand auf der Strasse, kein Taxi weit und breit. Also muss ich zu Fuss bei saengender Hitze auf Hostelsuche gehen. Habs dann schliesslich doch noch gefunden. Da ich hier nur eine Nacht verbringen wollte, mach ich mich gleich weiter auf die Suche nach den Ruinen. Kaum da, hab ich jede Menge neue Freunde gefunden. Eine Schulklasse mit vielen Kiddis fragen mir fast ... read more

From Iguazu falls we followed the Parana river, which forms the border between Paraguay and Argentina, to the small town of San Ignacio. Along with old pick-up trucks and dirt roads the town also has the restored ruins of a Jesuit mission, abandoned and lost to the jungle in 1798. The restoration had cleared the trees and rebuilt most of the buildings with the original stone. It clearly showed how the settlement would have been back then, when 4000 indigenous people moved from the jungle to live with the Jesuit priests and farm the land. We visited 2 other ruined missions in the area. Neither had seen the level of restoration that San Ignacio had but the collapsed building, overgrown with trees, were still visible. We felt like explorers rediscovering the lost sites and by using ... read more

A little history...the Jesuits (Spain's religious force) came to South America in 1609 to "teach" the native tribes a better Christian way and left in 1767 leaving their buildings behind them. San Ignacio Mini is the best preserved of these and this is where we headed for this morning. Whilst at the bus terminal we tried to obtain tickets for the potentially most tricky part of our journey, the trip to Salto in Uruguay and as we have been reading there are only journeys that arrive in Concordia (on the Argentinian side of the border) at 1am in the town centre or 6am on the outskirts of town. Sadly we are yet to hear back from a hotel in Concordia so this could prove to be a bit of a problem. Leaving this for later pondering ... read more

Arriving in Argentina and heading to Salta by bus from the Chilean border proved to be quite a deserted affair. Besides the moderate mountains and the 4 metre high cacti, it was pretty average scenery following our previous few weeks. It was also not helped by the fact that we were presented with ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast, elevenses and lunch! It got better though...towards the end of our journey the exposed rock faces blended into rainbows of different colours. Dark reds colours were adjacent to bright greens and gunmetal greys, caused by different minerals within. It was also evident how much wealthier the country was comparitively as almost every house was brick, had a satelite dish, and 4x4 outside...and the buses are first world! We were now consistently at lower altitude and the weather ... read more