Cayastá

Santa Fe la Vieja was founded in 1573 on the bank of the San Javier river, and after some seventy years its inhabitants gave up on a site that flooded and eroded relentlessly, dismantled what they could and moved the whole town south to the present Santa Fe. What they left was buried, and twentieth-century excavation uncovered the street grid, the foundations of houses, the plaza, and three churches, along with burials beneath the church floors that included both Spanish settlers and indigenous converts. The site is laid out for visiting with walkways and covers over the most fragile areas, and a museum holds ceramics, tools and personal objects. The river has since eaten part of the town, and the eroding bank is visible at the site's edge.

What you actually see

• The excavated street grid - foundations of houses and the colonial plaza.
• The church floors - burial sites of settlers and indigenous converts.
• The site museum - ceramics, tools and objects from the excavation.
• The eroding riverbank - the water that forced the town's abandonment.

When to go

April to November for comfortable weather; summer is hot, humid and heavy with mosquitoes from the river. The site is largely open air with limited shade. Weekdays are quiet.

Honest expectations

What survives is foundations and outlines rather than standing buildings, and interpretation is in Spanish. The visit is short. Access is by a slow provincial road, and the surrounding area has few services.

Nearby

Santa Fe city lies south; the RP1 continues north along the river through wetland country.