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...
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