Iglesia San Buenaventura

The Iglesia San Buenaventura is one of the great surviving colonial churches of South America. The exterior is deceptively simple — low, wide, with wide wooden galleries running along three sides to shelter the walls from tropical rain. A separate wooden bell tower stands nearby in the old Guaraní mission style. None of this prepares you for what is inside.

The interior is a masterpiece of Guaraní baroque: every wooden surface — ceiling, columns, pulpit, altarpiece — is carved and painted in a style that blends Spanish Baroque forms with indigenous Guaraní imagination. The hexagonal pulpit, supported by a carved giant's head and surmounted by a dove, is particularly extraordinary. The high panelled ceiling is painted in deep reds, ochres, and golds. Entry is free; morning light is best. On the UNESCO tentative list for World Heritage designation.

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A story
The church was built between 1755 and 1772 by Franciscan friars working with Guaraní craftsmen, and it represents the only surviving Franciscan mission church in Paraguay that remains complete in its original form. While the Jesuit reductions to the south are better known, Yaguarón predates them — the Franciscan mission here was founded in 1586, making it one of the oldest European settlements in Paraguay. The Jesuit missions were expelled in 1767; the Franciscans stayed, and their church survived.