In the jungle, something was stirring. The air was heavy with the ominous threat of a good dousing and, as the bus trundled to a stop on the rough dirt track, a strange noise greeted our arrival.
I cocked my ears and followed the sound on the breeze... it wasn’t the preening of a jungle beast or the call of a rare species, but something far more unexpected: the gentle strains of weeping strings.
Dusk in the dusty pueblo of Concepción and I’d just stumbled on my first notes of jungle baroque.
Concepción is the hub of Bolivia’s Jesuit Missions Circuit, a network of seven mission settlements strung out across Bolivia’s eastern lowlands. Key to each mission is its orchestra: talented musicians broadcasting baroque and chamber music out over the Oriente.
As I wandered through Concepción, a one-strip pueblo with a frontier feel and ragtag roadside stalls selling everything from chargrilled meat to potent chicha (grog), the locals began to emerge from their languid siestas, drawn by the gentle music.
The main square was full of people strolling, chatting, sipping cold beers, all in the shadow of the mission church’s elaborate façade, which loomed large against the sunset.
Inside, Father Reynaldo Brumberger was preparing for the nightly Mass. A German-Franciscan native of Munich, he came to the Bolivian jungle 25 years ago, following in a long tradition of Jesuit missionaries spreading the word of God across the heathen, steaming pampas of Latin America. He has never left.
“The church has always been at the heart of community life in the missions,” he said, donning his robes. “My flock are proud to be part of their church’s place in history.”
Jesuit missionaries first came to Bolivia in the late 16th century.
They not only brought Catholicism, but also converted the indigenous Indian population to the likes of art, woodcarving, pottery and the composition of baroque and chamber music.
As the Bolivian missions flourished, the elaborate churches founded by the Jesuits went on to become important centres of cultural learning, while the locals evolved into expert musicians as each church founded its own baroque orchestra to accompany Mass. At the time of the Jesuits’ expulsion by the Spanish in 1767, there were about 37,000 people living throughout the settlements.
By the time Bolivia declared its independence in 1825, the missions had already fallen into severe disrepair and were only saved by Swiss architect Hans Roth, who worked tirelessly for 27 years, until his death in 1999, to restore the mission churches to their erstwhile colonial splendour.
Six of the seven churches on the Missions Circuit are now Unesco World Heritage sites. With a major PR event planned for this March, it seems they could prove to be Latin America’s hottest new cultural attraction. Currently well off the gringo trail, and forgotten by everyone outside the pueblos of the Oriente, it seems their moment in the spotlight has finally arrived.
But following the five-day Missions Circuit, overnighting at the larger pueblos of Concepción and San Ignacio en route, is about more than visiting churches. The real appeal is taking a journey back through
time to the era of the Jesuits, and finding yourself in scenes straight out of the 1986 Robert De Niro film, The Mission.
My own journey started in Santa Cruz, the economic powerhouse of the country’s south. The traditional image of Bolivia is one of high-altitude altiplano: thin men in ponchos, llamas grazing on scrubland and oxygen-starved mountain air. But filtering through the sprawling suburbs of Santa Cruz in a ramshackle bus provided a whole new perspective on the poorest country in South America.
The 300km stretch from Santa Cruz to Concepción cuts a swathe through the cattle-rearing farmland of Bolivia’s Oriente. Dust billowed through the open windows of the bus and children hawked homemade lemonade from plastic cups as we stopped at toll roads. With every pothole along the way, my backside took a damn good bottom-buffing.
Nevertheless, the scenery was spectacular – lush foliage, exotic-coloured birds and the tropical torpor of remote pueblos provided an almost cinematic backdrop.
Better still, the frontier feel of the whole area means that, as you emerge hot and thirsty from a long stretch and stop for a hit of fresh juice from a roadside watermelon vendor, the sense of breaking new ground is quite tangible. While not shocked by the sight of a foreigner, the locals – mainly of Guarani, Guarayo and Paiconeca stock – certainly seemed far less cynical about tourism compared with the gringo Disneyland of certain other, high-profile, Latin American destinations.
Over the next few days I followed the trail, progressing slowly from one mission settlement to the next.
I stopped to eat simple but satisfying set lunches at restaurants on the main squares, and took late afternoon strolls around the churches, stopping to chat with local craftsmen working away on their traditional artisan goods.
It was not a journey for those without a sense of adventure. The infrastructure deteriorated markedly after leaving Concepción; pushing deeper inland towards the Pantanal region and, ultimately, the Brazilian border, rough-hewn earth tracks replaced the distant memory of surfaced roads, and the heat level edged up a notch from stifling to just shy of unbearable.
The welcome, however, remained one of friendly curiosity, and a slew of unexpected discoveries kept the journey fresh.
In particular, animal-shaped phoneboxes, imported from Brazil, brought splashes of colour to the dust and heat haze. From toucans to tigers, this telephonic menagerie runs wild throughout the whole of Bolivia’s tropical south-east. My favourite remains a giant parrot phone, on a side street behind the church in Concepción, radiating red like a missions sunset.
Most of all, I was struck by the way my journey was constantly underscored by a soundtrack of baroque and chamber music. Arriving late afternoon in a new mission settlement, the staccato tuning of violins would accompany me on my first lap of the main square, and the rapid bowing of cellos would escort me to my hotel.
In San Ignacio, a bumpy 171km ride from Concepción, I sneaked through the open door of a church outbuilding to find the local youth orchestra rehearsing for a forthcoming recital. A group of teenagers in shabby T-shirts and shorts were wringing sweet, elegiac music from their instruments. Finally, I’d come face to face with the otherworldly strains of the jungle baroque I’d heard on my first night in the missions.
“I like Latin American rock acts, such as Molotov and Octavia, but I love chamber music more,” said Alejandro Martinez, the orchestra’s 17-year-old leader, taking a break from tuning up. “I like the fact the music we play now has been played in this building for centuries.”
The Jesuit missionaries brought culture, faith and hope to the jungles of Bolivia, but can their legacy now bring tourism to one of the least-known and poorest rural areas of the country? Maybe.
“They say that music was the single most important factor in the successful conversion of the Bolivian Indians,” Father Brumberger told me, relaxing after Mass in the cool night air of the Concepción church garden.
“The Lord may move in mysterious ways,” he smiled, “but only music can change the faith of a nation.”
