12/13: Empty Encarcion, UNESCO 'Ruins' & Paseos in Southern Paraguay!

From the almost unbelievably sleepy town of San Cosme y Damian with its charming cobblestone streets, the next morning, our driver and guide, Jose, headed us toward Encarcion, the second largest city in Paraguay.

As we drove further southeast, Jose pointed out the soybean fields, reminding us that Paraguay was the sixth largest producer of the crop in the world.

A frequent sight in southern Paraguay was large termite mounds.

With his eagle eyes, Jose spotted this falcon atop a pole!

More Paraguay trivia: Jose told us that so many people emigrated from northern Europe in the late 1800s, that some of the people in Paraguay were as white and blond as in Denmark! Another wave of settlers, including Mennonites from Saskatchewan, Canada, came later. In Paraguay, it's not Friday the 13th that people have an aversion to but rather Tuesday the 13th! People make sure not to travel or get married then.

The canal had been dug to control the amount of water from the lake. 

These were Brahman and Cebu cattle as they were more resistant to diseases. They are crossbred with Hereford and Angus to provide a better quality of beef. Considering the mammoth numbers of cattle in Paraguay, we were surprised we had seen so few at any one time, certainly no massive herds as you'd see while driving the back roads in the US Midwest.

Jose remarked that preparation of the rice fields was taking place here. Paraguay exports rice to Syria among other countries. 

I noted in a previous post how Paraguay was a great place for birdwatchers. If we'd had more time, it would have been enjoyable looking for some native birds in this arroyo or creek. 

In these wetlands were four kinds of kingfishers, for example. It was almost psychedelic seeing so many shades of green and the rich red earth! 

Jose shared with us that this was his favorite area of his country as it was so close to Encarnacion and he loved the rolling hills and very fertile fields that produce five crops in two years. He would choose to live near Encarnacion because of the temperate weather and easy access to beaches if he couldn't live in the capital city of Asuncion which is too hot with temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius in the summer.

In Paraguay there weren't any superhighways that we saw, just four-lane divided roads. Jose wanted to show us more of the countryside so got off the beaten track to show us the riverside road by the Rio Parana.

I think this was a cari cari bird.

What an ideal place to go hiking or biking on the track by the river!

Perhaps this newly built riverside road was like the Field of Dreams - you build it and they will come! It felt like it was our private fiefdom as there was no one on the road or on the boardwalk at all for long stretches of time.

Being able to get out of the car and walk along the deserted beach for a bit reminded us of what we'd so often said before: It doesn't get better than this!

Suellen: I thought of you as I wiggled my toes in the gloriously hot sand!

Jose with Steven - did we ever luck out when we found another traveler recommending Jose on the Trip Advisor Paraguay forum last year!

Jose mentioned that the beach infrastructure had been implemented by the company that had raised the water level by building a dam which resulted in the displacement of a lot of people.

The grain silos we saw on the the other side of the beach belonged to the Mennonites and also individual farmers, according to Jose.

Encarnacion, on the border with Argentina, and known as the Pearl of the South, was the location of one of the first Reductions founded by Jesuit friars in 1615.

The almost 3,000-meter-long modern bridge spanning the Rio Parana to Posadas in Argentina was called the Puente San Roque Gonzalez de Santa Cruz after the Jesuit friar.

We learned that Encarnacion had become practically synonymous with San Jose Beach and the other beaches that border the city. Unlike the Costanera in Asuncion, Encarnacion's Costanera beaches were clean enough for swimming which helped to make the city a favorite destination for Paraguayans from the December to February summer holidays. 

San Jose Beach was normally the busiest beach but we could count on one hand the number of people on that 85 degree day. 

Across from the beach was all that remained of the only train station still in Paraguay - all two coaches of it! It was cute seeing it decorated with Santa Claus climbing atop it. As Encarnacion had been the end of the railway line within Paraguay before it crossed into Argentina, the station had been important.

As the sand was hottest we could remember, we had to run along it to get to the road and Jose's car! We had gone from one beach to another for a short stroll with Jose picking us up each time a few hundred yards away. Steven said he wished we'd just been 'let out' for one solid hour of walking and enjoying one of the beaches!

The boundary of the Rio Parana was closest to Paraguay because that was the deepest part of the river. 

More views of the international bridge that connected Encarnacion to Argentina:

The fork-tailed flycatcher had the longest tail of any bird I remembered seeing!

The Encarnacion Cathedral was normally closed but we lucked out as  it was being cleaned and we were allowed to enter for a few moments.

The Plaza de Armas was a lovely square in the center of the city that was divided into four separate squares within a square just like its counterpart in Asuncion. 

The Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of San Jorge with its gold onion dome was located opposite one end of the square.

Monument to the Mother:

The Ukrainian section of the square had a sculpture of a famous poet.

The Japanese part of the square:

The German square within the square had a plaque  thanking the country for "having generously accepted" their immigrants. That seemed to be a nod for the large number of Nazis who found a home in Paraguay after the war.

From Encarnacion we headed to the town of Jesus that was initially founded in 1865 200 kms to the east by two Jesuits from Spain before it was moved to its current location in 1758. As that was just ten years before all clergy were expelled from Paraguay, the town was never finished. Though Jesus was still a town in its own right, tourists only come to see the UNESCO-listed Ruins of Jesus. Jose explained the town was set up like a typical Reduction town with the church on the central plaza surrounded by the casas de indios where the indigenous people lived under Jesuit rule. By the casas were the school and workshops to train the Indians in certain skills.

The entrance to the ruins was very impressive.

The large area before we reached the ruins was the Plaza Mayor. 

We walked on the springiest grass ever with our feet 'falling' a couple of inches to reach what looked like ruins but was in fact the church. It was never completed before the priests were forced to leave in what came known as the Expulsion. As Jesus was built, or at least partially so, during the last Reduction period of architecture, stone was used. Therefore, the church survived unlike so many of wooden and adobe churches in the towns we'd toured the last few days. Another factor for the ruins' survival was the use of lime in their construction as it helped to withstand the elements through the centuries.  

Margaret Hebblethwaite wrote in her Bradt Paraguay Travel Guide that the three doorways leading into the church had a Moorish influence because the church architects were each Spanish. Having visited the magnificent mosque cum cathedral in Cordoba, Spain, a year earlier, we could see the similarities here. 

Plant motifs adorned the niches on the facade with the passion flower representing the Passion, the fleur de lis representing purity, and palm leaves signifying entry into Jerusalem.

Hebblethwaite wrote that, above the niches, the papal tiara surrounding the keys of St. Peter and the crossed swords represented "this was a Catholic town under the guardianship of the Pope, to carry arms in its own self-defence."

As we entered the church, there were two rows of six columns with a pulpit on each side.

Against the walls were flat columns with palm-leaf designs on the capitals.

It was easy to think where the architects had received their inspiration when we saw palm trees just outside the church!

I loved seeing the heads of angels with wings in the corner walls above the altar as they had been a recurring theme in all the Reduction towns.

Below the angels were the dates carved just before the Expulsion.

There were sacristies on either side of the altar where we could just see holes where roof beams had been placed because they had been roofed before the church had to be abandoned.

Behind the principal altar was the secondary chapel. There we knew to look for a lovely niche with more angels and fleur de lis designs on the sides. A sink for washing the holy vessels used in celebrating Mass was unfortunately missing.

The vistas through the openings were magical!

We'd hoped to climb to the top of the tower located on the right hand side of the church but got halfway up only to discover further entry was barred. If it weren't locked, we might have been able to see from the rooftop all the way to Trinidad, our destination later that night!

We had to 'content' ourselves with this pretty view instead!

On one side of the church was what remained of a long colonnade. Priests' rooms, workshops and the school for the indigenous people were located there.

I hope you get a sense of how vast the ruins were here in Jesus from these photos - they were immense!

This was all that remained of what had been workshops surrounding the colonnades.

The casas de indios were set up in rows around the plaza with each indigenous family having their own room.

The 90 minutes or so we'd been wandering around the ruins we'd only seen one other visitor, a woman, and only for a few minutes. Even though the scarcity of fellow tourists had been the norm for us since arriving in Paraguay about a week ago by then, it still struck us as odd that even an UNESCO site like these fabulous ruins had barely a soul there. 

Neither Steven nor I would describe ourselves as being mystical but we both remarked how we felt we 'belonged' or were a part of the community there in Jesus. I think that may have been due in part to the absence of anyone else but ourselves for the entire time and having all the time we wanted to explore the ruins and take in their beauty.

When the sun began to slowly set, the light in the southern sky was magical. Jose called it the Golden Hour and remarked how it was a perfect time for taking photos - I couldn't help but agree with him.

We checked in at the large two-bedroom apartment I'd rented for the three of us in nearby Trinidad, made us all some sandwiches and then Jose drove us back to Jesus so we could participate in the Paseo Nocturno or Night Walk that began just after sunset. We followed two guides back toward the church where there was an audio visual presentation set against the brick altar.

While we waited for the walk to begin, we heard the first English spoken in five days except by the three of us. It was like a culture shock listening to a couple of other tourists!

Even though Steven and I have spent a considerable amount of time in South America, once for a 3.5 month stint in 2016 and again this time, our comprehension of Spanish was still pretty abysmal, I am sad and almost ashamed to say. However, we did catch it was about the arrival of the Jesuits among the indigenous Guarani people!

It seemed Jose enjoyed the Sound and Light show a lot as he was up front videoing the entire performance for his wife and children back in Asuncion. Jose then quickly drove us back to Trinidad where there was another Paseo Nocturno among the ruins there! It would be our first glimpse of that site's ruins before we would explore them in detail the following day.

Begun in 2009, Trinidad's Paseo was far more an illuminated walk among the ruins and not a Sound and Light show like in Jesus. It was conducted wholly in Spanish so we only understood bits and pieces of what we were seeing. I admit to being more careful of where I trod so as not to fall and break a foot again than attempting to keep up with the guide and understanding what she said.

We were so, so looking forward to returning to Trinidad's ruins in the morning after being introduced to their striking sites at night!

Next post: I think you know that means a trip to Trinidad's ruins!

Posted on February 21st, 2020, on a spring-like day in Denver when the temperatures reached 60 and the sun shone. You can't beat Denver's weather!