A Day out in History ....

Today, we drove about 300 kilometers to Itapua in the South of Paraguay to see the Reductions. These were small towns built by the Jesuits in the 1500's. The were called Reductions because they were small and integrated. All of the buildings and services were close together in the centre of the town.

Celeste told me to bring extra clothes and plenty of sun cream as we were going to Scotland ! - the distance to Scotland, definitely not the temperature of Scotland ! It was about 40 degrees today too.

On the way we stopped off to visit another National Treasure, the Chapel at Yaguaron. This was built by the Guaranies, under the direction of the Franciscans in the early 1600's. It's a magnificent building with a hugely elaborate alter carved of wood and painted with gold and vegetable dye, which is remarkable as the Guaranies had no experience at all of this kind of construction before the Franciscans came. It's still a working church and there was a funeral coming in just as we left.

We drove on to the Reductions. There are 2 close together, one called Trinidad (the Trinity) and the other is Jesus. The Reductions are extremely well preserved and the sites are very well looked after. Originally, when the Jesuits came, they learned the local Guarani language and taught the local people in their own language. The Jesuits were very well respected by the Guaranies, and in fact created a huge area of influence, almost like an Empire. The Spanish, who had always kept the Guaranies as slaves, felt threatened by the partnership the Jesuits built with the local people and this contributed to the Jesuits being expelled by the Spanish in the 1630's.

The Reductions are a big tourist attraction, although there were not many visitors today, probably because of the heat. We only saw two other visitors, two French guys. We had to try and find shade to walk around in all day, but shade was scarce, particularly in the Trinidad reduction, as there is a lot of open space. This one is the most complete with the ruins of all of the buildings and areas well preserved. We visited the terraced houses where the Guaranies lived, the school, the Church and the Bell tower. The Jesus Reduction, just has the Church still standing, but again very well preserved and looked after. We had a guide at Jesus, who brought us around and explained the history.

After our long journey and visit to the Reductions we went to look for lunch. The guide recommended the Orange House, at Jesus, which we had seen on the way in. This was a little cafe, absolutely in the middle of no where, opposite the bus stop. I thought I'd wait for the bus for a while ! It comes once a day, and when it did come, our 2 French friends were aboard. We didn't quite figure out where it goes ..

We had a lovely local lunch at the Orange House and I got a big surprise when we went inside to find an Irish Flag and some smaller ones from Dublin.

The owner explained that a team from Habitat for Humanity in Dublin had come last year to build houses. This is the global charity that I work with and have been away building with a few times. I was amazed at the coincidence that we came across some of their work here, in the middle of no where in Southern Paraguay.

After lunch we left Jesus, to visit some of Celeste's relatives who live close by before we'd drive home to Asuncion.