This entire area - formerly Chiquitos and now enlarged to include all of the Chiquitania - is a region with a unique culture, history, people, and environment. The product of a remarkable fusion of two civilizations, European and native American, its fascinating legacy remains intact to this day. Its world-famous Jesuit mission churches - six of which were designated World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1990 are only the best-known of many expressions of this rich synthesis of cultures.

Others include its music (the famous Festival de Música Barroca y Renacentista Americana "Missiones de Chiquitos"), celebrated in world-famous festivals held every other year since 1996 throughout the region's major towns; an astounding heritage of sacred art and architecture; abandoned colonial ruins slumbering in pristine settings; and a wealth of centuries-old customs and folklore handed down from one generation to the next that still play a dominant role in the region's daily life.

Visitors usually come to marvel at the unique ten Jesuit mission settlements, and especially their churches, seven of which survive in astonishing glory, lovingly restored in every detail - each a breathtakingly beautiful architectural wonder and spiritual monument set in the midst of an idyllic wilderness.

Others come for the colonial ambiance, still evident in these towns' spacious plazas and slow pace of life. Some come for the colourful folklore and traditions maintained here and nowhere else. Still others come for the beautiful, hand-wrought art that has fascinated collectors and scholars for centuries.

Yet there is more than cultural attractions. Nature rules here, and the inhabitants live in harmony with it. The options are limitless, from luxurious cabañas and the slow pace of life in the old mission towns of San Xavier and Concepción, to charming "lost-in-time" settlements like Santa Ana; from the lovely village of Santiago de Chiquitos to empty, eerie landscapes and petrified forests of the pathless Serranía Santiago and Serranía Sunsas; from prehistoric drawings in long-forgotten caves and rock faces to primeval forests larger than entire countries; from the northern edges of the trackless Gran Chaco to the watery wonderland of the Pantanal and the area's national parks with their unique ecosystems.

For a detailed look at these wonderful mission communities and the Chiquitania in general, feel free to visit my Web site at http://www.chiquitania.com/