The Jesuit mission of Santisima Trinidad de Parana lies on a low hill in southern Paraguay, in the department of Itapua, and the stone ruins that remain are some of the most atmospheric in South America. It was founded in 1706 as one of the reducciones, the mission towns in which Jesuit priests gathered the Guarani people into settled communities, and it grew into one of the largest. At its height, several thousand people lived here around a vast central plaza, with a great church, a cemetery, a school, workshops, a college and rows of houses. The red sandstone church, begun in the 1740s, was decorated with carved figures, including angels playing musical instruments, and parts of its facade and pulpit remain.
The Guarani brought skill to the mission. They became sculptors, painters, weavers and instrument makers, and the missions were famous for their music, with choirs and orchestras playing European baroque pieces on locally made violins and harps. The Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish colonies in 1767, and the mission towns fell into decline. Trinidad was abandoned and the stone was robbed for local buildings, but the church and some of the surrounding buildings survived. The site was added to the UNESCO list in 1993, together with the nearby mission of Jesus de Tavarangue.
Itapua is farming country of red earth, soybeans, cassava and yerba mate. The roads are good, with Route 6 linking Encarnacion, the main city on the Parana River, to Ciudad del Este, and the mission sits off the highway on a smaller road. The air is hot and humid from November to March, and the red dust gets everywhere in the dry season. Thunderstorms can be violent in summer and turn dirt roads to slippery clay.
Hohenau, about nine kilometres away, is a settlement founded by German and other European immigrants at the start of the twentieth century. It has a distinctly central European feel, with German-named shops and bakeries, and it is a good place to eat and refuel. Trinidad has a few basic services. Drink tereré, the cold yerba mate that Paraguayans carry in a thermos everywhere, and eat sopa paraguaya, a dense cornbread that is not a soup at all.
Visit in late afternoon, when the sandstone glows red and the light is soft.