San Ignacio

After Iguazu, Elisa, Miki, George and I headed to las missiones - the ruins of the Jesuit missions that give the department of Missiones its name: in the 1500's the Jesuits built these missions as havens for the indigenous people who lived in the area. They converted them to Catholicism, but also allowed them to live with their families, continue speaking their native language and retain a substantial part of their local traditions. It was far from perfect or progressive, but the Jesuits offered a life far preferable to the enslavement of Guarani pursued by the majority of the Spanish colonizers.

The four of us got of a bus, grabbed a hostel at dusk, and then headed to the ruins at San Ignacio and expected to walk through a lot of historically interesting rubble. What we found was enchanting. We walked through the walls of the Abbey and as the sun was setting the our surroundings surpassed romantic - I could imagine hundreds of people in habits scurrying through the walk ways and dramas unfolding in the courtyards. Every piece of literature I've ever read set in an Abbey swirled in my head: The Name of the Rose, Northanger Abbey, and the Redwall books to name a few. The ruins were swimming with stories - thousands of which were already on paper on somewhere, and countless more just waiting to be written.

To cap off the evening, we embarked on an tour of the grounds in the dark. Our wanderings were complemented by period choir music and fantastically dramatic (yet tasteful) lighting. If the place wasn't already magical, that more than did it.