Mass begins at San Miguel, Jesuit Mission in eastern Bolivia

In the late 1600's Jesuit missionaries came to what what then Spanish and Portugese territories, now, Paraguay and Bolivia. There were many native peoples here and they were being rounded up by the europeans and enslaved to work in the mines north of thier home. (have you seen the movie, The Mission, with Robert D'Nero? that explains all this)
Anyway, the Jesuits protected the native people from the slave traders and so were fairly popular and had the opportunity to try out some of their utopian ideas and influence them with Boroque music, carving and painting. The result was a large area with these missions sprinked in the jungles. Then the Portugese and Spanish decided the church, and the Jesuits especially were getting too powerful in the old and new worlds and kicked the Jesuits out of south america. The missions were abandoned... but wait! not really! years later folks realized that some of the native people had maintained the churches, still made violins, still knew some songs ect. Sooo...in the 1970's some churches were restored and the area is a world heritage site. We toured 6 of the pueblos that have some of these churches. Very cool. (actually it was really hot) Very incredible. Very long way in a bus, cant' imagine how they got thier supplies in the old days!!!