Jesuit-Guarani Ruins, part 2: San Ignacio Miní, Argentina

Published in

Leo Cavallini Photography, the blog

17 min readJun 22, 2017

This is a series of five posts about a recent short trip by bus and bike in Argentina and Paraguay to explore the jesuit missions of the XVII century in South America

In this post you can see historical facts and photos of my visit followed by touristical information. All images are taken by me unless stated.

(Leia em português aqui)

Reducción Jesuítica de San Ignacio Miní, Misiones, Argentina

As told in the first post of the series, the Jesuit Reduction of San Ignacio Miní was first settled in 1609 in the region of Guayrá, where it is the brazilian state or Paraná nowadays. Running away from the invasion of the portuguese Bandeirantes coming from São Paulo in quest for indigenous slaves, the jesuits and the guaranis from San Ignacio and Nuestra Señora de Loreto reductions migrated in 1629 to the east margin of Paraná River, more precisely by the banks of the Yabebiry River. The place where today is the southwestern portion of Misiones Province.

Reproduction of San Ignacio Miní. Mural painted in 1930 in a Buenos Aires subway station. (Source: SBASE / Gobierno de Argentina, Creative Commons)

It was a warm autumn afternoon, past 4pm. The sky blue with some clouds when I reached San Ignacio ruins. Bike locked in the ticket area, ticket bought, a little chat with the staff that invited me to enter an old building right in front of the entrance for an extra ARS 30 pesos. I skipped, it was late already and the prettiest light was bathing the place. Couldn’t miss it.

1. Workshop courtyard / 2. College Courtyard / 3. Church / 4. Cemetery / 5. Hospital & Cotiguazú / 6. Houses of natives / 7. Central plaza / 8. Prison / 9. Barn

“In the beginning”, the cardinal points: east, west, right, left

It’s important to have in mind that all the jesuit reductions were constructed the same way: the priest prays the mass looking to the congregation and facing north, so the sunlight in the morning reaches the right church windows coming from east and wraps up the day bathing the west walls at left.

As you enter the site to the church façade, you’re heading south. So I’m gonna refer to places always refering the cardinal points: left means west, right means east.

That said, let’s get into it.

Entering the site…

…a pathway crosses a sector of jungle, ending up in an open field where I could see the ruins of the main church, about to 200 yards from the entrance. An elderly couple passed by and saluted me in castellano. Going straight to the church was tempting but the light in the jungle was fascinating.

The viviendas

Anything older than a hundred years makes me fall in love instantly. And that portion of jungle had it.

(Copyright: Trexel Animation for Proyecto Experience)

In both sides of the pathway there were the native houses, the viviendas, built in stone covered by vegetation and moss.

The houses inside the jungle were from the regular indians, one house per family. The houses facing the open field and near the church were destinated to the tribal leaders, the caciques.

This one was a cabildo, or a cacique house, with doors and windows turned to the open field

Plaza de armas or plaza central

As I roamed into the jungle, it opened to a field, the plaza de armas or plaza central.

The plaza central: the prison (square building at left), the viviendas (long buildings). At top left to right: the workshops, the college, the church and the cemetery (Copyright: Trexel Animation for Proyecto Experience)

It is surrounded by the rest of the viviendas to the both sides, these one from the caciques or the tribal leaders: these were the cabildos. The church was placed right in front of me. The walls of the college, referred later here as patio de los padres, is placed to the right side of the church, by the east walls. And to the left side, the cemetery at west.

I don’t know if it was the intention but it’s a good analogy to think the education and work were done where the sun rises and the cemetery representing the end is placed where the sun sets. Even the baptistery is placed at east and the funeral room at west (worth noting that the two ruins I’ve visited in Paraguay are the opposite way, don’t know why).

Looking south: these boxes are stone totems with touristic information and illustrations of the surroundings

Looking east: view of the central plaza. The tourists come from the left, the *cacique* houses are in the background, the church entrance at right

Despite being a very known touristic destination, the place was virtually empty, with the exception of a kid and their parents that soon vanished away from my sight. I felt lucky for that.

Façade

The viviendas with one chapel on each side, the plaza central and the church in the background (Copyright: Trexel Animation for Proyecto Experience)

Views of the entrance. Seeing the pathway and the walls vandalized left me a bit sad.

Reproduction of San Ignacio Miní façade. Mural “Collective Weddings” painted in 1930 in a Buenos Aires subway station. (Source: SBASE / Gobierno de Argentina, Creative Commons)

The church

As told before, the priest pray the mass looking north, so the windows at east and west can get the most out of the sunlight to illuminate the church, even providing a holy atmosphere to the interior of the place.

Reproduction of what might have been the nave of the church

View of the altar in the center and the accesses at left to the baptistery and at right to the sacristy

Looking north: view of the church from the altar. See how the afternoon light comes from west

Nature regains the place in one way or another

The IHS sign, probably recovered from the main entrance of the church

Self-portrait near the left side of the church, where the IHS emblem above is placed. Centered in this photo, you can see the door to the cloister, pictured below.

Looking east: door to the cloister, located at the right side of the church

Looking west: door to the cemetery, at the left side of the church

The college

To the right side of the church, at east, there is the cloister, the patio de los padres or “courtyard of the priests”.

It is also known as colegio or college, consisting on a plaza surrounded by a row of rooms at south: the classrooms, the kitchen, the dining room and storerooms. Divided by a hallway next to it to the far east, another courtyard with a building and more rooms, the workshops.

View from the cloister, the courtyard of the priests (Copyright: Trexel Animation for Proyecto Experience)

The place has rich adorned stairways, walls and columns, beginning by the doorway as the sign below reads:

DOOR TO THE CLOISTER
(Courtyard of the priests)
The one that in its part shows a tombstone with symbolic motifs. Eagle with imperial crown, below a serpent in aggressive attitude and a mermaid. In its center the Jesuit insignia.

Looking northwest: access door from the cloister to the church, with symbolic motifs above. At left in the photo, the door to the baptistery

Left: the same place as the photo above. Mural “hand kissing by the caciques” painted in 1930 in a Buenos Aires subway station. (Source: SBASE / Gobierno de Argentina, Creative Commons) / Right: details of the symbolic motifs.

Looking east: The courtyard with the workshops at center-left and other rooms at right

Details of the columns. The left photo shows the door to the cemetery in the background

Details of a window placed right to the door

Looking west: front view of the door with the motifs, the church and the door to the cemetery in the background

Looking south: alternative entry to the baptistery, that could also be accessed from inside the church. The room is placed at left to the altar

Looking southeast: stairways to classrooms

The classrooms

In the back part of the patio de los padres and to the right side of the church, there are the classrooms.

It was a place for the kids to be taught latin and spanish, reading and writing and catholicism.

A hallway divided another courtyard to the far east. That’s where the workshops are placed. Following the hallway and beside the classrooms are the kitchen and the dining room.

Left: View of a classroom from the cloister. I guess the gate is contemporary to the restoration / Right: I believe this room was the dining room and kitchen.

Looking north/northwest. The workshops at right, the courtyard in the middle-left (sun setting) with the church doorway behind the trees, the classrooms to the left. Behind me is the hall from the right photo above, looking the same direction.

Looking southwest: opposite view from the same place above. Workshops at left of the hallway, the classrooms in the background and the trees with the church doorway behind it. This hallway would lead to the kitchen and the dining room.

A crypt close to the kitchen / dining room. Don’t know why, storing food in there wouldn’t make sense. There was a proper ceiling for it.

Looking south: a classroom with the back part of the site in the background, believed to be the orchard, a soccer field nowadays.

The farm & orchard

In the southern portion of the site and behind the building of the classrooms, kitchen, storerooms, there was a rich orchard, the huerta.

In this area of the jesuit reductions, they used to cultivate a wide variety of food brought from Europe or introduced by the natives: vegetables like potato, manioc, corn, sweet potato, sugar cane, carrots, beans, cabbage, fruits like peaches, oranges, apples, lemons, medicinal plants and the guarani yerba-mate, a tea that could be consumed as a hot beverage named mate in the morning or a cold beverage in the afternoon named terere, mixed with other refreshing herbs like mint.

They also used to raise animals for meat and dairy products, transportation and leather for clothing and articles of daily or religious use.

Like in other aspects, this cultural mix provided an exchange for both the jesuits and the natives, where some dietary habits are still kept nowadays in the Americas and also taken overseas.

Looking east: a now-roofless porch along the adjacent rooms of the courtyards. A modern fence at right encloses the ruins

Looking north: stairways to the porch and the classrooms

The workshops

Next to the colegio and the patio de los padres, divided by the hallway that leads to the kitchen and dining room, are placed the workshops.

There, a building with rooms and another courtyard were used to produce pieces in wood, iron, silver, fabric, ceramic, sculptures, rosaries and also to bake.

The trench in the right photo below was a canal that collected rain water from the roofs and directed to a tank.

Left: sign next to the workshop with the water well in the background / Right: the water well and the workshop walls in the background

The cemetery

To the left side of the church, at west, there is a cemetery, consisting in a courtyard rich of trees and measuring the same length of the church.

The guaranis believe people become dirt after dying, so land is an important thing because they are happy to be next to their relatives.

By the cemetery area and beside the church entrance there was the funeral room. When a death occurred, the funeral used to be taken for 48h to ensure the person was really dead and not in coma. But due to the warm temperatures of the region, they made it last 24h only to avoid high decomposition of the body.

Looking east: view of the church from the cemetery

Sign next to the cemetery / Wall remainings demarking the cemetery

Looking east: window to the sacristy, room placed left to the altar, viewed from the cemetery. Centered in the background, the leefy tree from the cloister

Wrapping up

I’ve finished my tour on the jesuit ruins of San Ignacio Mini photographing a bit more of the viviendas during the sunset, whose photos are placed in the beginning of this post. Also chased some sloppy southern lapwings and made the final shots as the night was falling.

I had to leave soon as there would be the sonido y luces show (read below) starting 7pm, which I didn’t want to pay in separate. I was tired. I kept my GPS in my pocket all the time and later found out I’ve walked almost 4km distributed in 2h30 of exploration. But I was happy, enchanted by the discoveries I’ve made and the facts I’ve learned before: the remains of a peculiar story in the colonization of South America where europeans lived in peace with indians for almost two centuries, even defending them from other europeans.

Un muchas gracias especial to the Buenos Aires 3D studio Trexel Animation for kindly lend the graphic conceptions that helped illustrate this text. The images are part of the multimedia project executed by Proyecto Experience in the ruins and can be appreciated in the totems scattered around the plaza central. Head to their Behance to know more about this work.

The building at the entrance, constructed in 1936 that serves as a museum, which I skipped and regret

Old photos

Some photos I found mainly on argentinian websites prior to the works of restoration. It’s curious to see how the jungle has taken the place back.

Credits: Tarjetas Postales Argentinas, todocoleccion, Visitemos Misiones, Región Litoral, Argentina Patrimonial

Touristic information: how I got there

I reached San Ignacio town from São Paulo. I took a flight to Foz do Iguaçu, the famous brazilian city of the Iguassu Falls which borders with Argentina and Paraguay. Rode my bike from Foz to Puerto Iguazú, the first city in Argentina and then San Ignacio by bus.

Foz do Iguaçu > Puerto Iguazú

A cheap hotel I use to stay when I go to Foz do Iguaçu

From Foz do Iguaçu I could reach Puerto Iguazú, by bike. It’s 13 km far from Foz downtown and I did a quick ride to check the bus schedules to San Ignacio town and also buy a prepaid cellphone SIM from Claro, a telecom present in all Latin America (having mobile internet came to be super handy later in the trip). Then I stopped at Feirinha for a bottle of Quilmes and some empanadas. The place is sort of a street fair with beer, wine, cheese, olive, jamón, empanadas, alfajores and other delicacies. Soon I’ve returned to Brazil pedaling my beloved bike.

You can’t leave Puerto Iguazú without having an empanada and a Quilmes

You can visit Puerto Iguazú by bus leaving from Foz downtown. If you’re not Brazilian or Argentinian, you have to get off the bus twice in both aduanas to register your exit and entrance respectively and repeat on your way back to Brazil. The bus provides you a ticket where you can hop in the next ones to continue into the itinerary.

I also used the day prior to the departure to buy argentinian pesos (ARS) and paraguayan guaraníes (PYG) in Foz do Iguaçu. There are a couple of exchange houses at Avenida Brasil, downtown.

TIP: You can know if you are paying a good amount for something during the trip by Googling: 10 USD in PYG and it will return a table with the amount of ten dollars in guaraníes.

Rio Uruguay bus departures from Puerto Iguazú to San Ignacio and Posadas

Puerto Iguazú > San Ignacio

Next morning, Puerto Iguazú from Foz by bike again. The bus station (la terminal) is in downtown as the Feirinha.

There, you can buy a ticket to San Ignacio with a couple bus companies. I bought mine with Rio Uruguay, which costed me AR$ 285 pesos (US$ 18, R$ 60). You can also hop in the bus and pay to the ticket collector during the trip.

The bus is super comfy and there are a bunch of departures in a day, including overnight trips. It lasts about 5h and you still get some snacks mid-trip for free.

My bike went laid flat in a baggage compartment without having the wheels detached and for no extra cost. Remember: the right side of the bicycle and the derailleurs must face up.

San Ignacio: basic info & hosting options

San Ignacio entrance after crossing the RN12 from the bus station. The police and information cabins are placed right

Reaching San Ignacio bus station, you have to cross the road to the city. Next to the city portal you can find a police station and a touristic information cabin side by side. They can provide you a city map and recommend some hosting options.

I first tried San Ignacio Adventure Hostel which costs AR$ 185 pesos (US$ 12, R$ 38) for a shared room but ended up with a single room at Hospedaje El Descanso for AR$ 250 (US$ 16, R$ 51).

El descanso / A french couple’s motorhome / my horse and the room I got

A quick shower and I went to the ruins by bike, a mile away from El Descanso.

The Ruins of Misión Jesuítica de San Ignacio Miní

The entrance ticket is valid to the four ruins in the region for no extra cost, you just have to show up with the ticket in hand.

Residents from Misiones: AR$ 40 (US$ 3, R$ 9)
Retired persons from Argentina: AR$ 50 (US$ 4, R$ 11)
Argentinian: AR$ 110 (US$ 7, R$ 23)
Latin american: AR$ 150 (US$ 10, R$ 31)
Foreigners: AR$ 180 (US$ 12, R$ 37)
(Prices as of May, 2017)

Remember to inform your nationality so you can be charged properly. I ended up paying AR$ 30 pesos more because I didn’t inform I was brazilian and they didn’t ask for my passport or any other document. I found out about the overpay in the second ruin I’ve visited, Santa Ana.

My beloved white horse next to the ticket office

And visit the museum! It will provide additional information about the place. I skipped this step and regret it.

Don’t vandalize, keep your trash or discard it properly

Needless to say. The place is centuries old, it’s a freaking UNESCO World Heritage. Don’t write your name in it. If you don’t find a trash can nearby, keep it on your pocket until you leave the place. Including cigarette butts, which you can store in a plastic bag.

Note: I have a theory that the second photo below can be signatures of the restorers. Which I don’t agree in any way, but who knows… there’s a nice text in spanish regarding the restoration efforts, worth reading.

Wow! You’ve been here… you must be so special to write your name in a four hundred years old monument

Eat properly and carry a bottle of water!

The visit can last a couple hours and you will walk a lot, I did 2,4 miles. Before going in, I had an empanada and a can of Budweiser across the street. Remember the prices are a bit higher comparing to other places in the city, it’s in front of the freaking place! I also took a bottle of water, which I strongly recommend, the majority of ruins are roofless. You can also go to a small market around the corner for a pack of crackers, turrón y mani and water, beer, soda...

Luz y Sonido show

Another feature from the ruins I’ve skipped was the luz y sonido show (light and sound), a multimedia tour experience which takes place at night and will cost another ticket (valid for San Ignacio only).

Back to the base

Leaving the ruins at early night, I went to that market around the corner for a few crap food and some bananas. On the way back to El Descanso, I stopped by another shop and had a nice talk to the lady owner. She is of german origin — that region and south Paraguay are largely populated by germans. Dueña Delia Schimmelpfennig. I told her there’s an important avenue in Foz do Iguaçu called Jorge Schimmelpfeng and she readily responded “it was my uncle!”. Later I also discovered he was the first mayor in Foz, 240 km far from there.

A place to park the horse / The red sign reads: “Don’t envy me, I’m not rich, I just have a job”

A hot shower at El Descanso, a desayuno next morning watching argentinian gossip and then prepare the bike and bags to leave for Santa Ana, 13 km down the RN12, which I covered pedalling.

An employee and the owner of El Descanso watching the morning gossip during breakfast

Parroquia San Ignacio de Loyola, founder of the Companía de Jesús — Jesus Society

The series

The other posts regarding this trip will be updated here in the next days. Stay tuned: follow me here on Medium, Facebook, Instagram, Behance, Tumblr…

Jesuit-Guarani Ruins, part 01: Historical aspects and travel plans
Jesuit-Guarani Ruins, part 02: San Ignacio Miní, Argentina
Jesuit-Guarani Ruins, part 03: Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana, Argentina
Jesuit-Guarani Ruins, part 04: Jesús de Tavarangüé, Paraguay
Jesuit-Guarani Ruins, part 05: La Santíssima Trinidad del Paraná, Paraguay