Red sandstone, carved with angels, vines and saints, rises out of the green jungle of northeastern Argentina at San Ignacio Miní, the best preserved of the Jesuit missions in the province of Misiones. Founded in the early seventeenth century and moved to its present site in the 1690s, the mission was a town for several thousand Guaraní people, organised by Jesuit priests, with a great church, workshops, houses, a school and a plaza. The church's facade, in a style often called Guaraní Baroque, combines European forms with local motifs carved by Guaraní craftsmen. The mission, with others in Argentina and Brazil, became a World Heritage Site in 1983 and 1984.
The Jesuit missions were an extraordinary experiment: self sufficient communities that produced yerba mate, cattle and crafts, defended by their own militias, protected from slave raiders. When the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish America in 1767, the missions declined, and the jungle took over. The film The Mission, from 1986, tells a version of their story.
Misiones is a narrow province between Paraguay and Brazil, with red earth, subtropical forest, tea and yerba mate plantations, and rivers. Its most famous sight is the Iguazú Falls, at its northern tip, a few hours' ride from San Ignacio. Nearby, Loreto and Santa Ana have other mission ruins, and the house of the writer Horacio Quiroga, a pioneer of Latin American short stories, is in San Ignacio.
Route 12, which runs from Posadas to Iguazú along the Paraná river, passes San Ignacio and is the main road, busy with trucks but scenic. The red dirt roads off it are slippery when wet. The climate is hot and humid, with heavy rain possible at any time.
San Ignacio has a filling station and simple places to eat, and Gobernador Roca, ten kilometres away, is another option. Try chipá, cheese bread, and drink mate, or tereré, its iced version, as everyone does.