14.9 kilos

Plaza Huincul, Neuquén,

Argentina 23 November, 2010

Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, mate, dry wind, sand, argentine accents and the limits of my Spanish once again. This has been my experience in the last few days in this little town in the desert of the province of Neuquén in southern Argentina. Yet again, I’ve been lucky, or, that is to say, I’ve been adventurous, taken risks and my gambles have paid off. I’m staying in the house of a complete stranger. That’s not really out of the ordinary for this trip, but this is my first experience using the website and social network CouchSurfing. Now I’m not really going to explain what that is because a lot of you already know, but for those who don’t just take a second to google it or something. I say this because I’m not really trying to advertise the whole thing, but it’s worked for me.

This little town is called Plaza Huincul. It was founded in 1918 (or 1919, according to some) as a camp for the workers who worked for the (then) national petrol company YPF (Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales). But it wasn’t until much later that it became an incorporated town. In the early days, only people who worked for YPF could live in the camp, so all of the other people who were attracted by the oil boom settled just outside the camp and founded the town of Cutral Co. Although the presence and influence of the Mapuche is much less here than it is in the Araucanía Region of Chile where I was, this is still Mapuche country, and Cutral Co means something like “water of fire,” which was the way the Mapuche had to call oil. And that’s what makes this town tick. Apparently, 80 percent of all people living here work in some capacity related to the oil industry; the rest work either in little shops or for the state.

That brings me to my host. She’s a paleontologist. If that sounds a little random, know that this region (the Argentine Patagonian provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro and Chubut) has seen the discovery of some 30 percent of all dinosaur species found in the world (more or less, out a total of about 700). Or at least that’s what I’m told. Either way, paleontology is big here, and a few years back, the largest dinosaur species ever found was excavated some 7kms from Plaza Huincul. It’s called Argentinasaurus, something I’m sure Argentines are very proud of. It’s a large suaropod, or one of a variety of long-necked quadruped herbivores. They only found a partial skeleton, but based on the dimensions of other cousins, were able to extrapolate that the individual discovered was as long as 40m. It’s huge.

Other than that, there isn’t much to see or to do here. I’ve spent my time tying to update this blog, as well as discussing Argentinean politics, culture and accents with my host and some of her friends. It’s been interesting and a needed break from the road (mostly for my head, rather than my feet, ‘cause I still walk kilometers a day trying to run errands and going to museum which is my only source of internet). But tonight I’m taking a night bus down to San Carlos de Bariloche, more commonly known as Bariloche. It’s in the province of Río Negro (the next one south) in the foothills of the Cordillera and on the banks of another glacial lake. This time, it seems that the weather will do me a good turn and I’ll be able to see some things. I hope.