Missions In The Rainforest

We arrived in Encarnacion (Incarnation) in the evening of Saturday the 5th October. Travel in Paraguay is extremely hit and miss, and this journey was a miss, and we almost missed the bus even before we got on it. People in this part of the world often slam their seats as far back as they can go, to the point where you are often left wondering who you have wronged whilst you have to stare at someone’s greasy scalp for 6 hours. Also, the bus companies oversell all the tickets and let as many people on as can fit and then some until Paraguayans dressed in bad jogging outfits loom over and on you for the whole journey. At least a dozen people who get on or off the bus on any given journey were at least 250 pounds in weight (the new shape of poverty is pear shaped). Extremely uncomfortable.

A kind man from one of the ticket agencies did help us find our destination upon arrival though by walking with us halfway to our next couchsurfing destination. Our new host, Cesar, lived in the center of the city, and welcomed us warmly. It was his mum’s place (an attorney) and his cousin also lived there. We were shown to a room at the back of the house right next to a kitchen area where we could cook, etc. We even went with Cesar to a newly opened restaurant where we had some nice clean world food (he just stuck to two ice creams – a treat allowed on Saturdays as he plays guitar in church on Sundays).

After driving around Encarnacion a little (the new waterfront area was built once the Yacyretá dam was built and all the poor area that was there was demolished and is now underwater), we headed back to catch up on some sleep. Encarnacion seems to be a much more lively city than Concepcion, with more high-end shops, restaurants and activity – possibly because of its location as a border town with Posadas in Argentina.

We woke up the next day and after I put some laundry on, we went to the bus terminal and had some breakfast (which by this point was grilled chicken and Russian salad). We then jumped on a bus to a little village called Trinidad (Trinity), which is home to one of the many Jesuit ruins that are scattered around the region.

Francesca wrote about the Jesuits in her blog when she visited Argentina earlier in the year, and now we were both seeing this Jesuit mission for the first time. As difficult as it has been travelling around Paraguay, the missions is one part of the tourist trail they had got right. Perhaps because they have Brazil and Argentina’s example to follow when it comes to missions – there are about 30 Jesuit ruins in total in the three countries, the first having been built in 1609. One thing that surprised me about Trinidad was the fact that it is completely surrounded by homesteads and a busy little community of farms and houses – I expected it to be more in the middle of nowhere than it was – there is even a hotel right outside the ruins complete with restaurant.

 

Trinidad was built in 1706, and is a great example of a Jesuit mission from the era because it was a fully completed and functioning hive of activity (13 hectares). In fact, they had over 3000 Guarani living and working at the mission, all performing various tasks – singing, playing instruments, building the mission and working the land around it. 608 families from another mission came to settle this mission. The native elders were buried alongside the Jesuits in the central nave – I think this helped integrate the two groups.

The mixture of the classical styles of architecture and art that the Jesuits bought from Europe and the indigenous styles native to South America created a mix called Guarani Baroque. Trinidad has no restoration work done to it when we visited and so we could really imagine what it was like to be there when it was a thriving community.

With an impressive square, church, school, workshops, native housing, cemetery and gardens, Trinidad is one of the most complete and impressive Jesuit missions left from the era and is a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1993.

There was a large group of graduates from the University of Medicine turn up for their graduation pictures when we were leaving Trinidad, and, because it was Sunday, we had to get the administrators to call us a taxi instead of getting the bus. To our happy surprise a tuk-tuk turned up and the ride to the next Jesuit mission was very pleasant and reminded me a little of India. They have branded this route now as the ‘Ruta Jesuitica’ and it is very reassuring, easy and relaxing to enjoy the journeys from Trinidad to Jesus missions – not a small thing in Paraguay where everything seems to be so difficult due to lack of infrastructure, willpower and corruption. The Itapui dam company, Itapúa sponsor this Jesuit Route.

Jesus was a lot smaller than Trinidad, but the journey there and the walk around it was very pleasant because of the fine weather. The site was actually moved three times before they settled on this spot, but it was too late to be completed - the buildings were never finished before the Spanish expelled the Jesuits in 1767. Perhaps this is why the mission has been restored more than the one at Trinidad. They have done a good job showing what it would look like though, and there is even a bell tower that you can (carefully) climb and get a nice view from.

The paint for the decorative objects at the missions was usually three-layered, with gypsum, water and rabbit glue being applied and then lightly sanded down. Everything was done at the missions, and they were on the whole, totally self-sufficient.

The Guarani tribes people were all inducted to the Christian viewpoint by the Jesuits and other missionaries, and throwing their lot in with the Spanish seemed like a sensible move as they were able to defeat all their traditional enemies by allying with the new white Christians who followed their chief, Jesus. It kind of backfired pretty rapidly as the Guarani were all genetically wiped out as pretty soon, with all the Spanish conquistadors taking multiple Guarani women, there were no pure blood Guarani people left.

Our taxi driver swept us back from the Jesus mission to the bus stop at Trinidad and we shortly boarded a local bus back to Encarnacion. On the road were many cars and trucks pulling speed boats – maybe Argentinians visiting for the weekend, or the richer Paraguayans enjoying the many lakes and rivers in the country. We rested that night, and in the morning, on the 7th October, we packed up and headed to a National Park three hours to the North, called San Rafael.

We were going to get an 8am bus but opted for the 11.30am bus instead so we could enjoy a breakfast with Cesar (tea and mate), get some dollars out for Argentina, and buy some other essentials we needed – this also gave us time to call Christine, who works at the park to confirm she could pick us up, as the bus stops at a village called Ynambu about half a dozen kilometers from the park.

The local bus was the same as the one that took us to the ruins, so for the first hour we saw nothing new. After passing the missions, we turned down a dusty red road (barely a road), and clattered and choked our way to Ynambu.

We arrived early, grateful to be off the bus. The little village of Ynambu was pretty deserted – just a few locals giving us funny “you ain’t from around here, are ya’ boy?” looks. We did see some huge John Deere farming vehicles though that looked like a company sponsored alien invasion.

After a little while Christine turned up – a Swiss lady who settled with her family in San Rafael in 1978. They now run Pro Cosara, an NGO that, with the assistance of the WWF and others, have bought up tracts of the last remaining Atlantic Rainforest in Paraguay.

The Atlantic Rainforest is not to be confused with the Amazon – it is a totally different climate, although it does share some of the same flora and fauna – they both have huge spiders, lizards, frogs, anteaters, tapir, monkeys and big cats. They also share various trees, plants and ferns, but on the whole, it is also quite different. This rainforest is home to some endemic species that are under extreme threat from deforestation. In fact, only 6% of Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest still exists – and reports state a British mining company has just been given rights by the Brazilian government to run a railway right through what is left. This is the rainforest we saw when we first got to Brazil, around Sao Paulo and Rio; but most of it is actually in the more Northern state of Bahia.

In Paraguay it exists now only as a relatively small tract of land running through the highlands of Cordillera San Rafael. This forest not only protects animals, but also countless streams which go on to form the great river in the region – the Parana. Aggressive logging due to wood collection and cattle/soya farming is reducing the rainforest massively each year.

This is what Pro Cosara are trying to prevent, by buying back the land from small farmers with donations and reforesting. By re-educating the children of Paraguay to work with the land, not to conquer it. They also manage the forest that is there, tracking animals, maintaining tourist trails and monitoring human activity too.

Whilst we were having dinner the first night, Christine told us about the inherent dangers of being the chief NGO looking after this park. They have been shot at twice by dangerous drug barons who grow marijuana in the park illegally. The government had given some of this land to the indigenous peoples, but the drug dealers rent this land, legally, to grow ganja, illegally. It is then smuggled across the border, probably through lawless frontier posts like Juan Pedro Caballeros into Brazil to the streets of Sao Paulo and the beaches of Rio.

Christine’s husband, Hans, has also been very busy in the park. Other than looking after and working with the animals on the farm (at Pro Cosara) he also built his own small airplane using a make your own kit from the States! He flies over the park and has been shot at by the drug dealers from their ganja plantations in the park! Just goes to show that the war on drugs is a total farce and is being lost by all except the criminal elements.

From our very tidy and plush little cabin that we rented out for 110,000 Guarani per day (about US$25 which included breakfast, lunch and dinner which we ate in Christine’s house), we could see the hangar where graduate and intern biologists worked and the airplane was stored.

We were briefed on the various trails you can walk around in the park – Pro Cosara is located at the Southernmost tip of San Rafael, and is surrounded by agriculture on all sides. The smallest trails were about 1km each, and the biggest, which should take between 2 and 3 hours to walk, is about 7km long. Needless to say, we walked them all (Francesca stayed in for the last one, because it was so hot that day).

We had bought some stupid looking hats that are camouflage-colored and have mosquito nets hanging down from them for a trip that Paraguay Safari were supposed to bring us on, but they cancelled on us last minute so we were glad to put the hats to use in Paraguay – and even better that no-one saw us wearing them!

We did not see many animals, certainly no tapir or big cats, but when, on the 8th (our second day there) we took on the biggest walk in the morning, we had a big scare. We were about 1km into the rainforest, and we were happily walking along – Francesca clearing the way of spider webs (the spiders here are big and hairy and scary and awful) with a stick. She had stopped about 5 meters in front of me and we were looking for a bird that was making lots of noise to our left. She took one step forward, to the side of the trail when, GGGGRRRRROOOOWWWWLLLLL, something growled at her from a few meters away! I heard it too, and it made my blood cold. Francesca screamed out and came towards me, I was watching the bush but nothing moved, nothing came out or ran away. It took us a few minutes of hasty discussion, having backed away down the trail, to get up the courage to investigate. I had our spider-clearing stick now, and starting coughing and making lots of noise to scare whatever it was away, but nothing moved. We decided to continue on. When we passed the spot where the growling came from we heard and saw nothing. There were so many trees, leaves and shadows that it would have been impossible to see anything there as it was so dense with foliage. For the next twenty minutes it was hard to enjoy the walk, imagining jaguars and pumas disemboweling me at every turn. Pretty soon, it became apparent we were OK, and we enjoyed the walk with no further scares.

We did see some southern lapwings (they are everywhere!), plush-crested jays, red oven birds and I even saw some ibis, a few huge iguanas and egrets while at San Rafael. It is very hard to see animals in the dense jungle as our close encounter would suggest! We asked Christine and the resident biologist Martha about the growling and they thought it must have been a cat. There were even reports a few days earlier of puma prints by local farmers, so maybe it was one we had woken up. There was also a smaller jungle cat that had been spotted in the area too, though, perhaps an ocelot or oncilla, so who knows?

One of the trails is around the lake (I did that one by myself after lunch on the 8th even though I kept thinking about the growling we had heard that morning!). Another is past some of the streams that make up the forest and come from the highlands which also has a little wooden bird watch tower mirador, or viewpoint along it. One tip for people visiting is to bring plenty of bug spray, and get all your walks done by 4.30pm because that is when big fat mosquitos, spiders and all sorts of horrors come out to play.

The 73,000 hectares of San Rafael was designated a National Park by the government only in name in 1992. In reality, it is only designated a protected area or sanctuary and is owned by private owners who do what they please with it. Throughout our trip in South America we have noticed a total lack of political will to really and truly protect the environment, and it is especially so in Paraguay where the government are so blatantly corrupt. Christine even told us stories about the police and drug dealers working together, being bribed, and even former park rangers have been paid off by the police that they entered the forest with. The rangers had to take the money or they might not have left the forest ever again!

It was really eye-opening how little impact huge commercial charities like the WWF have for these NGO projects, possibly because they are spread so thin in their remit. If they were more focused, however, they would not get so much attention and funding. Catch 22. It is with the commitment and dedication of people like Pro Cosara, who moved to the area, not to save it, but to live alongside it’s beauty, who are making the real difference. It is not a fight they could have imagined they would be in when they emigrated there in 1978, but they fight it now fearlessly, and they have my total respect.

Our last day saw us a have a nice lie-in. I walked to the lake that marks the start of San Rafael from the South, and saw some cows encroaching on it – symbolic perhaps. I spotted a huge iguana whilst avoiding cow pats. Francesca packed and then we all had a lovely lunch of rabbit curry (my first time eating rabbit), and said our farewells. Christine drops you at Ynambu for 40,000 Guaraní (about 9 bucks) – same price for the pickup. The three hour bus journey was interrupted by a breakdown. We limped along, eventually, with the driver steering and changing gears, and, because his gas pedal no longer worked, the ticket collector reaching down into the engine to pull the throttle each time the driver told him to. After half an hour of this madness, we sensibly switched buses. We lugged our bags, now covered in chewing gum from the first bus, onto the second bus, and settled down to an hour of fat people’s scalps in our faces, a woman who clearly had a chicken in her bag, and a person of questionable gender and hygiene sitting next to Francesca.

This will be our last bus journey in Paraguay, and for this, we are eternally grateful.

We stayed with Cesar our couchsurfing host for another three days whilst we recovered from a hefty dose of summer flu. He was very kind to have allowed us to stay for so long, and even gave us a lift to the border. Crossing over was no problem, and rather than wait for the next bus that takes you several kilometers over the bridge to the Posadas bus terminal, we grabbed a taxi on the border. It helped us get rid of the last Guarani currency we had, and made for a nicer trip.

The idea was to go to Corrientes (again) from Posadas (which we did), and see a local folkloric dance show on Saturday night. We had been told that Fridays and Saturdays were when these shows were on (Corrientes holds the annual festival of Chamame dancing). We had timed this purposefully to coincide with a Saturday, and we headed out from the medium budget hotel, the Plaza. We went to three places, La Cocina, a Chamame specialty restaurant, El Calderon, another folklore themed restaurant, and finally even tried the theatre – no dice. Nowhere was showing Chamame, none of these places had websites or any contact information online, and none of them had any solid dates (except the theatre which unluckily had no Chamame shows this time or last time we were in Corrientes) of when Chamame was to be shown. A sound engineer at El Calderon did show us a YouTube video of a three-piece band playing some folk music; but without the folk dancing to accompany it, it sounded like just a massive headache to be honest.

Disappointed, we headed back to the hotel. The next day was spent in the hotel lobby, waiting for our bus to San Salvador de Jujuy. The hotel was full, so we could not get a late check out. We boarded that bus at 8pm for a horror drive of 13 hours to Salta, then a change and another 2 hour journey to Jujuy during which we lost 2 magazines and a bag with all our medical supplies in it. Annoyed and tired, we checked in to our hotel n Jujuy on the 14th October – but that is for the next post. But we are in the mountains now, and it was the first time I had seen the Andes.