11-12 April 2011
Kitty wanted to go to the Jesuit mission ruins at San Ignacio so we caught a bus from Puerto Iguazu at 9.45 in the morning and because the bus never did more than 80km/hr and stopped every 20 minutes, we arrived there at 2pm. We walked into town from the bus station and found a hostel to spend the night. We were absolutely starving at this point so we went to have lunch and then headed down to the mission. The mission (called San Ignacio Mini because it was the second mission to be founded in San Ignacio´s name – the first one, San Ignacio Guazu (Guazu is Guarani for big) is now Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay) was founded in its current location in 1696 after two previous attempts in different locations. It was an active community until the Spanish king expelled the Jesuits in 1768, after which it fell into ruins.
We had an English guide who showed us around the site and explained about the history of the Jesuits and Guaranies, which was really good. It is a huge site and at its height it housed over 3,000 (?) natives, all run by only 2 Jesuit priests.
San Ignacio Mini (along with Santa Ana and Loreto) have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites and as San Ignacio is the largest of the missions, it also had an amazing light and sound show in the evening. They had video projectors onto screens made of water mist and then told a story about the history of the missions with native actors and music of the time. Then they lit up the ruins in different colours, which was absolutely amazing.
Our bus to Salta didn’t leave until 3pm the next day so we spent the morning on the banks of the Parana River (the second most important in South America) where we did some hiking and saw the supposed house of Hitler’s secretary general after he escaped Europe at the end of the WWII).
We had a nice lunch back in San Ignacio where we got to try gnocchi made from yerba mate and where the owner showed us his Bolivia pictures, which made us really excited…
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