The Bolivian Baroque Festival

Across a chain of enchanting jungle churches in the Amazon basin, every two years the former Jesuit mission stations of Chiquitos provide an extraordinary backdrop for a remarkable Baroque Music Festival. Collectively designated as a UNESCO world heritage-site in 1990, the simple wood and adobe constructions of these six remote colonial churches are gloriously carved and painted both inside and out. The six mission stations (San Francisco Javier, Concepción, Santa Ana, San Miguel, San Rafael and San José) are filled with the sound of glorious indigenous and international baroque music, performed by both professionals and local amateurs. The churches are packed to the rafters with a mainly Bolivian audience, and keen cultural adventurers.