The plains of eastern Bolivia look wholly unlike the Andes people picture. This is the Chiquitania, a gently rolling country of dry forest, red earth and granite outcrops, where in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Jesuit priests founded a string of mission towns for the Chiquitano and other peoples. Six of the surviving churches are listed by UNESCO as the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos, with San Francisco Javier, Concepción, Santa Ana, San Miguel, San Rafael and San José among them. They are working churches, and the wooden columns, painted ceilings and carved pulpits still serve their communities.
What makes them unusual is the blend. The Jesuits, among them the Swiss priest Martin Schmid, who built and designed several of the buildings, brought European forms and music, yet the craftsmen who built them were local, and the decoration shows it, with bright patterns that mix baroque and indigenous taste. Music was central, and today an international baroque festival grows from that heritage, which is a remarkable thing to find in the middle of cattle country. The missions were run as communal settlements until 1767, when the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from its territories.
For riders, the missions circuit is a long, gently rewarding journey. Paved roads link several of the main towns, and tracks join the others, with the surface changing quickly from smooth tarmac to rutted red dirt. The dry season, roughly May to October, is the sensible time, since the wet months make the clay roads slippery or impassable. Distances between fuel stops can be large, so top up whenever you pass a station in towns such as San Ignacio de Velasco or Concepción, and take extra water. Heat is a constant, and a siesta in the plaza under a tree is not laziness but good sense.
Evenings are the best time in the plazas, when families gather, children play in the dust, and the old churches glow in the setting sun. The food is simple and good, with beef, yuca and rice, and cold drinks are always welcome.