From My Notebooks In 1974: San Ignacio to Villaguay
4th October 2026 |
Given my appearance and eccentric mode of travel, it was always uncertain how I would be viewed in a new destination, but more often than not I was received as a visiting dignitary. So it was in San Ignacio.
September 12th. San Ignacio.
Lunch at Auto Club hostel. Then taken to parish priest – “Der Farrer” – José Marx. German missionary of the Stegler Order. Blond – thinning hair carefully brushed across on top, calm outwardly. Sitting on chair in front of mural painted on the convex curve of the back wall, which must be the outer side of the altar. It depicts a conquistador and friar standing back to back. The C. is looking over the Iguacu Falls, and the friar is holding his cross up to an Indian couple working in a field.
He thought his being sent to San Ignacio very significant. “Es gibt kein Zufall,” [There is no coincidence.] He has been trying to set up industries for the indigent Indian population to run for themselves – i.e. the 20% that the Eldorado German [whom I met yesterday] thinks of as wastrels. Has started a cooperative for extracting essence from citronella – previously in Puerto Rico did something similar but was sent packing to Rome by local bishop who thought he was causing too much trouble. He returned to convince the same bishop that he was doing good.
Was in Mexico too for a five-year period, knows Ivan Illich [a controversial priest at that time] but has little respect for him – says he preaches simplicity, poverty, and lives rich – takes his jet to USA for holidays. Has language school in Cuernavaca, very expensive, where he also indoctrinates.
Marx wants to do ‘Son et Lumière’ in the ruins – and bring tourists from B.A. Has built a guest house – sleeps 12.
Walked around the ruins admiring them and enjoying the calm but could feel no special affinity. Had dinner at hotel again – with two Berlin students. No bill. Slept well.
September 13th
Spent an hour next day writing generalisations into Marx’s guest book. Don’t know why. Doesn’t seem like a very useful thing to do. Better to have sent him a letter. Still, it was an act of gratitude.
[A friend in London had an uncle, Clinton Poore, with an Estancia near Villaguay, where I would be welcomed. A letter would be waiting at the post office in Villaguay telling me how to get there.]
‘Uncle’ Clinton
Travelled on from San Ignacio to Posadas, Corrientes, Goya. Got first glimpse of really flat endless ranch land west of Posadas. Uninterrupted road – no villages, houses. Then, towards Corrientes more detailed landscape. Ran out of petrol one kilometre short of petrol station. Difficult to get lift. People afraid of being robbed (Cf. Clinton’s story about boy and girl dressed up to play tennis, who mugged driver.)
Decided that timing must be wrong. Stopped to change plate and plugs [I don’t understand this at all.]
Stayed overnight at Goya in “Sportsman’s Hotel.” Dinner at Colonial Restaurant. Prices about half of Brazil. More continental atmosphere. Tables and chairs to drink at, like café. Changed $10. Went on to Villaguay, by dirt road, but missed turning and rode around Bovril for a while looking for right road (No.6).
Arrived in Villaguay at 5.30. Letter was at post office waiting. Big military garrison with warnings about sentries shooting. Came out on dirt road to Estancia la Estella to arrive just before dark. Stella and Babs were there. Clinton was at farmer’s meeting.
Sunday 15th
Heavy cloud and rain. Roads impassable. All clay and greasy. Cooped up for three days, watching birds from windows. Cardinals with red faces, other birds like robins but most luminous red all over except wings. “Ben di vin” birds but bigger and called something else. [Pronounced Benjivin, the bird makes a sound like “welcome” in Portuguese.]
Wednesday 18th
Went out to shop on sulky. Cloud was beginning to break up a little. Cart is little more than a bench slung over the axle. One horse in the shafts. And another alongside on the left. Trotted all the way, 8 kilometres, over the black earth roads through silent fields with copses of gum trees to break up flat skyline. Big fields of cows at pasture, reaped maize, ploughed fields. Owls swooping around in daylight, wild guinea pigs in long grass beside road. My companion was young man with ten brothers and sisters. He was very smartly dressed in brown jacket and clean brown bombaços and gum boots. The horses knew the way. Slowed down where road narrowed to cross drainage ducts, and in boggy patches where other carts had driven deep ruts the two horses couldn’t trot side by side and the one on the left was pushed out slipping and sliding back into the ruts. Both seemed very willing and always began to trot again as soon as they could.
Ancient cars were favoured here because their big wheels do better in the mud.
The store had wooden fence set round it, and six horses were tied up, some with carts. In the shop it was very quiet. Some men sitting, a small bar on right of the door with tin sink to wash glasses. Men all wore hats of some sort and observed me curiously. Boy presented a list to storekeeper. I took a cognac. He drank Amargo, some sort of dark non-alcoholic drink.
The butcher was opposite. Beefy man with one eye. Knife and steel in sheath of kind all men carry. Cut down half a carcass of glistening red cow, and bundled meat into two sacks. Woman had a handsome face, and the little girl was pretty, as they all are. By the time we left the cloud had almost gone, lingering only on the horizon.