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Argentina: sunken tourist hotspot and rock parrots


 October 2022

epecuen

Sunken tourist hotspot Villa Epecuén

On the shores of the salt lake Lago Epecuén, about 600 kilometers southwest of Buenos Aires, a vacation village was built starting in 1920. The therapeutic effects of the highly saline waters caused the village to boom very quickly, reaching its prime in the 1970s with over 1,500 residents. During this time, however, there were years of more rain than before, and Lago Epecuén began to swell. In 1985, a dam broke

and the village was doomed by a slowly rising tide. The water peaked in 1993 with a depth of 10 meters, and then due to the weather situation, the water receded again starting in 2009.

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We visited the now dilapidated abandoned town, which in its boom years was visited by over 20'000 tourists in the high season.
An overnight stay, outside the town was very special for us.

propane tank refill

Filling up the propane gas tank on the highway overpass

After the arrival of our Sprinter Motorhome by cargo ship, we filled the dutifully emptied gas tank for the first time near Zarate in a gas center.
Now after more than four months we were back in the Zarate area and thought to refill our gas tank there once more. Unfortunately, however, the necessary gas truck was on the road on tour. The nice dispatcher on the spot said that it could take three to four hours until our return. After some chatting, he got creative and asked us for our further way. He called the truck driver and arranged with him an appointment for us in half an hour on a highway overpass, 20 KM away.
It worked like clockwork. When we drove onto the overpass, we already saw the truck approaching, which then parked in front of us on the breakdown lane. Since his hose connection without adapter fit directly on our tank thread, the tank was filled in a flash! It took a little longer to issue the invoice.
The driver got a good tip for his flexible, uncomplicated behavior and we drove on again with gas for a longer time.

es mercat restaurant

Es Mercat - Resto Bar in Montevideo

An excellent restaurant in the old town of Montevideo with rustic decoration and open kitchen. Specialties of fish and shellfish - were delicious.

rock parrots2

Rock Parrot Colony 

At the western end of Balneario El Condor is a sandy beach with a vertical cliff behind it. Rock parrots live in the cliff and they like to breed in colonies in sandstone and limestone rocks. As a food source, the birds need relatively large areas of natural vegetation within a radius of up to 50 kilometers. There they find seeds, buds, berries and fruits of the bushes of the Monte vegetation as food.
El Cóndor is the largest colony of all parrot birds in the world, with more than 35,000 couples.

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Rock parrots arrive in the breeding area one to two months before egg-laying and usually leave in the weeks after the young fledge. Breeding season is from October to February. Rock parrots do not use nesting material, they lay their 2-5 eggs on the ground in the cavity up to three feet deep.

rock parrots

We stood with our Sprinter Motorhome at the top of the cliff for several days. The flight movements of the thousands of parrots during the day as well as at dawn were unique!

Photos

Photos