By train across the country
In 1906, the newly elected President of Argentina raised the issue of the development of national territories. This was the beginning of the era of the Patagonian Railroad. But only a couple of decades later the operating line connected finally the large center of Bahia Blanca and the southern tip of the province of Buenos Aires, the city of Carmen de Patagones, across the river from which lies Viedma, the capital of the neighboring province and the door to Patagonia. br>
From the 24th to the 34th. built a special tourist branch, going west from Viedma to San Carlos de Bariloche. Now this resort, including the ski resort, is heard by the whole Southern Cone, but at the end of the 19th century the place was cut off from the north-east of the country and lived exclusively through the Andes exchange. Hence its name: "Carlos" - by the name of the founder, the German merchant and "Bariloche" - from the word in Araucan, meaning "people on the other side of the mountain."
Once upon a time, historical passions were boiling here, but in the 20th century the main significance was nature: the first Nauel-Uapi National Park was created ("Jaguar Island"), and tourists even more actively reached for peaks and glaciers, forests and steppes, to six dozen lakes, to unique flora and fauna .Later Bariloche, officially awarded the right to a piece of reserved land, also became famous for his chocolate .By the way, often using this word, we do not think that it also comes from Latin America: "chocolate atl" means in Aztec language "bitter" or "brown water" .
During the year the temperature here does not rise above +30 ° C and does not fall below -10 ° C .Although in the off-season rains are pouring, in summer the sun's rays illuminate Bariloche up to 22 hours a day .The air is unusually fresh and delightful .More than a century ago, metropolitan residents, especially rich young people, took the fashion to make "adventure" trips for health, sports, hunting and fishing .Such a trip in the 1920s was as follows: from "Bayres" to Bahia Blanca, and later to Carmen de Patagones twice a week, went "fast" comfortable train .At first, before Viedma there was no railway bridge, so tourists crossed the Rio Negro in boats, then on cars followed to San Antonio, where the railway section began to function first, and then again transplanted to cars and so reached Bariloche ±$ br >.
Later this broad-gauge branch became a fully operational route. True, many narrow-gauge sections have been built in Patagonia, where today one can ride on a real locomotive, in old wagons: for example, the cartoon look of La Trochita, as before, runs 165 km along Chubutu. This is the same "Old Patagonian Express", which was described in his book by the American writer Paul Theroux, who reached "on the shifts" from Boston to the Argentine Esquel.
Patagonian broad-gauge railroad ties can not be seen: the rails are drowned in the sand and grass, in some places are shattered. Between Viedma and Bariloche walk slightly shabby white and blue cars "Fiat Concord" with washbasins in the compartment, carved chairs in dining cars and with all the paraphernalia of the 70's. In the compositions there can even be a "cinema car" and a "disco car", and special platforms will take your cars and motorcycles to you.
The views on the road from Bariloche are really beautiful, and at night the stars often fall. Outside the window of the foothills are replaced by the steppe - this is pampas or la-pampa, an endless "savanna among the mountains". In the artistic sense, the pampa symbolizes for the Argentines the immensity and wealth of the native land. And Patagonia in the hearts of people remains the "country of the giants", as its first Europeans called, whose average height was 155 cm against 190 cm in the tehuelas that met them. But, of course, it's not just that.