After having seen the Iguazu Falls from both sides of the border we decided to move on southwest from Puerto Iguazu. We were heading towards Encarnación in Paraguay, right across the river from Argentina's Posadas. It was only a five to six hour bus ride to Posadas, but we cut it in portions none the less, by stopping at the Jesuit ruins in San Ignacio. We got the tickets just before heading out, after checking a couple of places at the bus station. They'd told us at the tourist information that there are buses leaving towards Posadas once an hour, but what they didn't mention is that they are all belonging to different companies and you need to walk around checking which is the next one to leave. We found a company called M. Horianski that charged AR$205 for the trip but for some reason gave us a discount leaving us at AR$144 per person. We thought that was reasonable enough and got seats in the first row of the top floor, allowing for the best views. They also had currency exchange at the office and bought our remaining Brazilian reals for a set price of AR$3/R$1, which was marginally better than the actual rate.

The bus ride ended up being quite nice actually. Our main backpacks went into the cargo department of the bus and we got up to our seats in the front of the double decker. They were good seats, with a great view to the road. They also reclined quite a bit more than average airplane seats. We had our self-made travel pillows with us so in the end we didn't follow the scenery too much but ended up dozing off from time to time. The route took us through every little town roughly along the way which meant that the bus was constantly making short detours to pass by different stations, but we made it to San Ignacio on schedule. We had left Puerto Iguazu at 11.30 a.m. and arrived to our destination at 4 p.m.

The town surrounding the ruins isn't very big, so it was easy enough to walk to our reservation from the bus station. We stopped along the way at the tiny tourist information center to get a map and to ask about the admission to the ruins. Our guidebook said the price would be AR$60 but it had gotten up to AR$130, which didn't really surprise us. We had read that the entrance tickets would be valid for fifteen days so our plan was to go see the ruins quickly on our first day and more thoroughly on the second, but it turned out that they close the place down already at 5 p.m. so there wasn't really any point in that anymore. We took the map and followed its guidance to our hostel, El Jesuita, close to the ruins. We had booked through hostels.com where the place had great reviews. We were a little surprised when they showed us our private room and the rest of the facilities. The promised communal kitchen consisted of two gas stoves which worked fine, but the sink was outside with all the pots and pans etc. The pots are always crummy in places like this, but usually they are somewhat clean. Here most of them had a few leaves inside, which isn't that bad, but one of them was stored with a bunch of cooked rice still inside. We shared the "private bathroom" with another room with the people in the dorm using the one outside of the building. Ours was OK but well worn, the one outside much less than perfect with very little room and the shower basically above the toilet. Our own room smelled damp and the bed cover was actually moist. The lock on the main door only worked from the inside so we had to leave the room through a smaller door that could be locked with a separate padlock. The lock they gave us looked like something a nine year old girl would use to keep her diary a secret, so we used our own lock instead. The breakfast consisted of a small serving of slightly burnt bread, dulche de leche (fudge) and coffee. We paid AR$280 for this which says something about the price range of hostels in Argentina. We were paying almost western prices for Asian standards.

The next day we went to see the ruined Jesuit missions. Turned out that even the local tourist information had the price wrong, since it was actually AR$150 per person. That's exactly why we don't have a budget on this trip… Well then, what did we end up getting for our money? We started with the museum, praised by our guidebook, and found it to be somewhat informative but lacking in artifacts. It was a very small place with very little things to see, but luckily most texts were also translated in English. After the museum we took a stroll around the ruins which supposedly are in relatively good shape. They are, for buildings that were built in the 1690's, but mostly they were just partially collapsed walls. There are no statues or paintings or such in the main area, but there are some pretty knowledgeable speakers explaining things in several languages, which gave the whole experience an educational aspect. We were glad we saw them, basically and in general. We weren't too glad about spending AR$300 for the tickets, which in the end weren't valid for 15 days in the same place but only allowed us one time entries to four different Jesuit sites in that time. Another thing our guidebook got wrong… It also failed to mention the flesh eating bugs they have there. As soon as we made our way to the ruins we were attacked by vicious little flies that pestered us the whole time we were there. They were the biting kind and there were a lot of them, sometimes ten or so buzzing around us. They weren't easy to squash but every once in a while we got one only to have it spread a foul sweet smell on our hands.

So the Jesuit ruins weren't quite what we had hoped for. We ended up spending only a couple of hours in the site, which was more than enough time. I'm sad to say that we felt like it was clearly overpriced, even though the fee would have included the entrance to three other sites as well. It's a sales tactics and nothing more, we didn't have time to visit the other ruins in faraway villages and most probably don't. The surrounding town didn't prove much better with very little else to see and nothing but pricey tourist restaurants open during the long siesta. We ended up staying two nights none the less, to avoid the hassle of taking the bus to Posadas and finding a place to stay there. On our second day we had a lunch of plain boiled pasta and a dinner of bread accompanied by cheeses and a magnum size wine bottle. All in all San Ignacio didn't have that much to offer… I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone who's not really interested in the Jesuits or local colonial history.