Dec 24^th Nahuel Huapi National Park

This park is the 3^rd oldest in the Americas, behind Yosemite and Banff (in Canada).  Founded in 1934 it comprises beautiful lakes, waterfalls, forests and mountains which I have tried to capture in the pictures.  I included a map of Argentina and Chile; you can see Bariloche which is only 40km from the border with Chile and is at the entrance to the national park.  This whole area was affected by the movement of the tectonic plates (I guess most everything on Earth was).  In this case it pushed up the Andes providing the natural separation between Chile and Argentina.  Chile has been losing shoreline and, as narrow as it is, it is likely to disappear in a few million years.

Fortunately, unlike in the U.S. there are not many forest fires as they do not have lightening storms.  One of the most interesting trees in the park is the monkey puzzle tree which I have shown in a photo.  There is still a dearth of wildlife other than birds.  We have seen one mouse, some trout and one rabbit-quite a bit less than on a safari.  However, we did see a condor today, circling over a mountain top where it nests.  It is awesome-lives 60 years; has a single mate and is a master raptor.  While the condor is black and white there were many beautiful birds, the males with bright colors to attract mates-is that why men wear ties?  Speaking of wildlife, we saw very few people in the park as has been the case for the rest of the trip.  It is the beginning of high season but I guess folks are not here yet-great for us having the forest all to ourselves.  We took a lovely hike through the forest and around a lake; I took some pictures.

It is Christmas Eve and we asked our guide and driver what it is like.  Dinner starts at 10pm and presents are opened after midnight.  Meats are the thing and every imaginable meat: sausage, venison, boar, is available (very little vegetables other than lettuce and tomatoes).  Argentina is not a good place for vegetarians.  The cooking is very German and there are many microbreweries with all sorts of German specialties.  As I said before, so far the food is nothing to brag about.

The guide was reluctant to talk about the “dark side” of Argentinean history but with some prodding there was more discussion about the aboriginal people and the war criminals.  Unlike the U.S. where the Indians were mostly herded into reservations away from the land needed by whites for cattle, in Argentina they were exterminated-not placed on reservations; and as noted before the people all look Western European.  As for the Nazis, there was a welcoming German community that had existed since the 1880s and Peron had kept Argentina “neutral” until two months before the war ended.  The result was that Argentina became the largest haven for Nazi elite who escaped the Allies.  Our guide, who is in her early 30’s described the time she was in high school and the principal was arrested as a war criminal.  She remembers being interviewed by the national media-her recollection was that he was a remote person who kept to himself.