argentina: alta gracia

breakfast was not included in our hostel price, we ended up eating at a cafe on a platz...we found the small bus station in cordoba from where we could take a bus to the city of alta gracia...alta gracia is on the unesco world heritage list, as it has one of the jesuit estancias that were so important in argentinean history...alta gracia is perhaps more famous as the city in which che guevara spent many years of his childhood...
our bus dropped us off at the bus station, we stopped into the information office to pick up a map and figure out where to go...it turns out there are a bunch of museums in the city, though we weren't interested in most of them...

we decided to find che's house first...on our way there, we walked through a park, and passed a churro truck...YUM...there is nothing better than fresh made churros...full of grease and sugar, there is nothing better...that being said, both bo and i weren't feeling so good by the time we finished eating...
the park was called the parque of the americas...we saw flags for a number of the countries in south america, but nothing from north america...we both climbed on that statue for a picture...
we found che's house...then we found another house...and finally we found a third house in which he lived...guess what, they were all on the same street; i don't know what prompted the family to move so much on the same street...one of the houses has been turned into the che museum, the other two aren't even marked...i only noticed them because i knew the addresses at which he lived...needless to say, che's life was never stable, though his family was always close...

che was actually born in rosario, but his family moved to alta gracia because he had really bad asthma...alta gracia is at a higher altitude, and the air is dryer...
the entry fee to the museum was expensive (75 pesos!)...i hope they use that money in a good way, but i don't know...the house is small, but well curated...each room has photos and letters and information signs about different aspects of che's life...there are a couple maps showing the routes of his motorcycle trips through south america...some of the information has been translated intp english, most is only in spanish...

from che's house we walked to a lake in the city centre, it's a man made lake which has been surrounded by a concrete boardwalk of sorts...on one side of the lake (which is really small) was the second sight we wanted to see, the jesuit estancia...
unfortunately, the church in this estancia was not open, we weren't able to find out why...booo...as we were exploring the rest of the estancia (which had good displays about how life was back in the day, as well as the family that had lived in this estancia) bo managed to set off a motion detector...hee hee...

after walking through every open room we could find, we exited the estancia and bought two bags of salty popcorn, yahooo!!!
it was easy to find our way back to a bus stop to catch a bus back to cordoba...

argentina: jesus maria

one of the reasons i wanted to visit cordoba was its proximity to several other unesco sights...the town of jesus maria is one of those...there is a jesuit mission worth seeing...
we found the small bus station in cordoba from which we caught a bus to jesus maria...the estancia we wanted to see is a unesco listed sight, but i don't think jesus maria gets very many visitors...if i hadn't read about the mission in the guidebook, i don't think we would've visited this town...
we got off the bus, everything was quiet...we stopped for lunch at a bus station cafe, both of us had pizza...
i was really glad i was able to use the maps function on my phone, otherwise we never would've found the estancia/mission...there were no signs indicating where we should go!!
we were only allowed to take photos in the church of the mission...the church was simple, but i liked it...it was pretty chilly, i bet it never really gets that hot, even in the middle of summer...i was actually pretty cold by the time we left the estancia, as the whole thing is stone...

one of the display rooms had more paintings of angels garbed in colonial clothing carrying weapons...similar to the paintings we'd seen in the church in uquia...
not much else to report about jesus maria...

argentina: posadas and the jesuit missions

our bus from concordia to posadas wasn't the sleeper bus we'd hoped for...the sits were big and relatively comfortable, but they didn't recline back as far as we wanted...i felt as though i rolled around all night, not getting a lot of sleep...i don't think bo slept any more than i did...we were served food several times, but it wasn't great...
we arrived in posadas at 0600...ugh...
we took a public bus into the city centre, found a hotel, and bo crashed...
we ended up having breakfast when we took the same bus back to the bus station and found a small cafe there...i ate too much, ooops:)

we took the next available bus to the santa ana ruins...the jesuit ruins around posadas are a unesco sight...these ruins were each centres of impressive areas where jesuit priests formed local communities in order to 'civilize' the natives...extensive systems of government existed, and catholicism was the only acceptable religion in these missions...it sounds a bit repressive, but they were also great at agriculture, and were pretty advanced for the time...
the ruins at santa ana aren't visited as often as other ruins in the area, it took us a while to find the entry road after hoping off the bus...to make it all lots of fun, it was raining lightly...(yuck)...

despite these ruins being a unesco sight, google maps didn't have the location marked very well...argh...eventually we figured out where to go, (passing a mate - a tea of sorts - plant on the way) and found the entrance...
due to the crappy weather, bo and i had the ruins to ourselves for a while...awesome...our visit started with a quick visit to the information center, and introductory speech given by one of the 'park rangers'...photos of what the area looked like when the ruins were discovered, pictures of what the ruins might've looked like during their heyday, etc...the guide also described specific architecture points...

i could try to describe these ruins, but it would be difficult...you can see what remains of various walls, and the information signs posted all around tell you what would've been in each area of the ruins...there is a graveyard toward the back, apparently there are several layers of burial...it was used during the time the mission was functioning, as well as later, by people who live in modern santa ana...
we walked back out to the highway, and caught the next bus to the ruins of san ignacio...the ruins of santa ana aren't close to the modern city of santa ana...in san ignacio, the ruins are in the modern city...these ruins are visited a lot more, and they feel distinctly more touristy...it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the entire economy of the town is reliant on the tourists who visit the ruins...along the path to the ruins are heaps of souvenir kiosks...

while visiting these ruins it was easier to imagine how life was back then...more of the ruins of san ignacio have been restored...we both wondered what these missions would be like if they still functioned today...the reason all these ruins exist is basically political...at one point a government in argentina decided it didn't like the potential power of the jesuits, so they kicked them out of the country...when they left the country, the locals who lived in the ruins didn't stay there for long, and the places just fell apart...(despite moving out of the ruins, the locals did take some of the farming and religious instruction with them, so the current religion around these areas is a curious mix)
we definitely did not have this set of ruins to ourselves, but at least it stopped raining...
we took a bus back to posadas, and bought tickets to our next destination at the bus station before heading back to the city centre for dinner...we finally settled on a diner...i ended up with a bad white bread sandwich...ugh...i made up for that with a slice of a chocolate tort that was way too big from another cafe...this meal was not very healthy...