12/14: UNESCO Trinidad Mission & Ita Cajon Stone Quarry, Paraguay

The previous night we'd come to the Jesuit-Guarani Reduction Ruins at La Santisima Trinidad del Parana or, in English, the The Most Holy Trinity of the (River) Parana to attend its very enjoyable Paseo Nocturno or Evening Walk. Our driver and guide, Jose, dropped us off so we could explore the ruins in the light of day at our leisure. Trinidad, for short, was founded in 1706 in what is now Missiones, Argentina, but moved to its current location in 1712.

As you can see from the map at the entrance, the Trinidad site like the one at the nearby Jesus Ruins, was huge. As also like at Jesus, stone was again used for the buildings so there was a lot to see, compared to the other Reduction towns whose buildings had been made of adobe or wood. 

On the right as we entered were the casas de indios or small homes or really rooms for each Guarani indigenous family whom the Jesuits 'collected' and had live there. Before we reached the casas, there was a particularly large Plaza Mayor that measured 200 meters by 130 meters. It would have been used for religious processions, sporting events, as well as whipping criminals!

Of the 21 blocks that had existed around the plaza, 8 still remained with their Roman or round-topped arches. Each block had between 6 and 8 square rooms, each with a front and back door. As the casas were far better preserved than any others we'd seen in the previous five days, we had a real sense of the space set aside for each Indian family.

A pretty carved stone rosette was between the arches.

Originally, tiles, molded around a man's thigh or a tree trunk, constituted the roof.

View from one casa into another:

We had to be careful where we walked and not trip on the 185 small lights in the ground and the 16,000 meters of electrical, sound and video cables set up for the Paseo Nocturno!

From the casas we walked across part of the vast plaza to what remained of the nearby Iglesia Mayor or Great Church. According to Margaret Hebblethwaite in her Bradt Paraguay Travel Guide, the church in the late 18th century was described by the Santa Maria de Fe parish priest as being "the biggest and best of all the Missions; built entirely of stone, with  very beautiful dome, cupola and lantern of the dome; all done with great clarity, proportion and decoration. The facade and tower are superb. In short the whole work has turned out without equal in all that part of America and is even much to be envied in the principal cities of Europe."

Beside the church were small mounds that were the graves belonging to the indigenous.

On an exterior niche was a stone statue of St. Paul with his sword. Sadly, the heads of the 12 Apostles also set in niches had been lopped off by looters who hoped to find gold hidden inside the statues.

As we walked up the nave, all by our lonesome as once again there was no one else there even though the ruins were an UNESCO site, we saw again the very attractive, red-stone pulpit we'd seen the night before on the paseo. Amazingly, the pulpit, originally one stone block, had been rebuilt in what must have been like a huge jigsaw puzzle with 600 broken pieces!

The pulpit had the symbols of the four evangelists: the lion for St. Mark, the eagle for St. John, the angel for St. Matthew, and the ox for St. Luke.

I can't tell you how much time I spent looking at the pulpit trying to figure out which symbol was which!

Not trying to be redundant but what a cherubic angel on the pulpit!

A huge dome once covered the church but it fell down sometime between 1750 and 1856, probably because rainwater filled up the soft, porous sandstone and doubled their weight. It was rebuilt with bricks, but after too many were looted, it fell again and dragged down part of the wall with it.

Beneath the original floor of the nave human remains had been found that belonged to the priests that died before their bodies could be returned to their homelands.

The entrance to the crypt was in the center of the nave.

How phenomenal it would have been if I or we could have attended Mass that was occasionally celebrated here in the ruins on special occasions, especially with musicians from the Orquestra Filomusica that play and sing music written for the Reductions!

The base of the altar was also highly decorated.

 

Thank goodness this hornets' nest was so high up as we couldn't be stung!

One of the church's most stunning features was the frieze of angels playing musical instruments near the top above the altar and the transepts. Some of them played violins and harps, organs and trumpets while others swung incense!

The entrance to the children's choir's sacristy was marked by grand carved designs.

The entrance to the priests' sacristy was also elaborately carved.

Inside it was a small museum packed with statues, carved stones and all sorts of odds and ends from the 18th century. I wondered where they once had been in the ruins at Trinidad!

There was a magnificent collection of angel heads and absolutely no security measures in place anywhere we noticed. There had been two guards by the entrance who checked our tickets prior to letting us enter but no one else we saw later. You can see I rather admired these angle heads by the number of photos I took!

We exited the sacristy into the cloister with the same assortment of priests' rooms, school and workshops that we'd seen in all the other missions.

More termite mounds in the cloister!

In the distance was the watch tower.

In the shadow of a colonnade was another fine collection of carved remains that seemingly anyone could have just walked off with.

Just outside the sacristy was a striking statue of a woman with a fan. The figure, likely that of a saint, had originally been part of a column.

The bell tower, as with other churches in the Missions, was a distance away from the church itself. Hebblethwaite wrote that as Trinidad had a foundry, it was famous for its dozen iron and bronze bells of varying sizes.

Trinidad was also home to a second church. This Iglesia Primitiva or first church was built first while the bigger and far grander one was being built. When the dome on the main church collapsed, this church was used.

The much simpler's church's altar:

There were only a few magnets and other small items for sale in the stalls outside the ruins. I felt badly only buying one magnet as these people clearly could have benefited from an infusion of cash. It took several minutes so all four could decide who had made the magnet and therefore earned the money!

Leaving the ruins, we walked over to the modern parish church a few minutes' walk away to look at some wooden statues kept there. 

The church was closed but fortunately Jose was able to arrange that it be opened for us later.

A huge cactus was growing out of a tree!

Since Jose had worked so hard the last several days, we opted to walk to Ita Cajon, the former stone quarry the Jesuits had used to built most of Trinidad. Getting there was easier said than done as our directions weren't the best.

Seeing a number of stone figures made in a park-like setting made us wonder whether we'd really come across Ita Cajon or were someplace else altogether.

The native plants were lovely and the Guarani mythological figures very inviting to see.

Behind the exposed roots of the guapo'y tree was a cliff wall where where the stones for the Trinidad church had been cut out like blocks.

The figures were definitely an added bonus to the quarry if not the main attraction in the end!

This was the 'proper' entrance to Ita Cajon but we had come in the back way through an unmarked trail - far more exciting that way!

On our way back to our apartment, we saw this woman carrying what looked like a bed frame on the back of her motorcycle one handed - rather her than me was all I could think!

A view of the ruins as we walked back.

This carving in the grass caught my attention but I had no idea why it was there by itself in the middle of nowhere.

Andrew: This is where we spent a couple of relaxing hours in the backyard of our apartment in Trinidad reading and where I called you from. Do you remember that call? It was a stitch watching some free-range chickens dart in and out of the bushes a few feet from us!

We did return to the pretty modern church to see the amazing statues late that afternoon but, frustratingly so, all those photos have 'disappeared' from my camera. The carving of the painted wooden Trinity was of particular interest as it depicted the three persons in a typically Paraguayan style with each in perfect balance. The figure was stolen in 2006 and only recovered after one of the three robbers died in a car accident, and then a second died, too. The third one, fearing divine vengeance, confessed where the statue was hidden!

Our two-bedroom apartment in Trinidad was enormous and was quite inexpensive.

Dinner that night and breakfast both mornings we stayed in Trinidad were at the Posada Maria Restaurant that was only a few steps away through the backyard. I wrote down that our bill only came to $7 for dinner for both of us that night including two scoops of yummy homemade ice cream that Paraguay is known for. Can't beat that price in many places in the world, now can you, especially since the portions were gigantic by US standards? The owners looked like they may have been Mennonites as 'white' as they were.

Next post: The long drive back to Asuncion, the capital, as our trip to Paraguay sadly comes to an end. Thanks to Jose, our trip had surpassed all our hopes and Paraguay was one of the few countries we've visited we wanted to return to, given our ages!

Posted on February 23rd, 2020, from Denver just one week before we embark on our next adventure which was to have been a long awaited trip to visiting new countries for us in Asia but will now also include four countries in the Middle East to avoid the coronavirus in Tibet and China.