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To this amazing experience we can add a visit to Swamplands of Ibera, the second greater wetland of South America, a site privileged for the watching of birds with over 350 different species.
WATERFALLS & SWAMPLANDS |
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Without a doubt the Patagonia is one of the Argentine regions with more beauties
and secrets to discover. Great extensions of yet to be populated lands, ice fields impossible to go thru, histories of explorers yet to be written, makes of Patagonia a land of fascination and legend.
The zone of lakes near San Carlos de Bariloche, the legendary route 40, the National Park los Glaciers with its mountains Fitz Roy and Torre, the Perito Moreno Glacier, the National Park Paine Towers in Chile, the coastal zone of Peninsula de Valdes with its fauna, penguins and whales; and the island of Tierra del Fuego with Ushuaia and from there the possibility of arriving to Antarctica are some of the attractiveness that are waiting doe us.
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› ITINERARY |
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Day 2 El Chaltén - Cerro Torre trail Day 3 Fitz Roy trail - Laguna Capri Day 4 Loma del Pliegue Tumbado Day 5 From El Chaltén to El Calafate Day 6 El Calafate - Perito Moreno glacier Day 7 El Calafate – Torres del Paine
Day 8 Torres Del Paine – Puerto Natales Day 9 Balmaceda and Serrano Glaciers Day 10 Puerto Natales - Calafate Day 11 El Calafate airport |
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Meals
Not included:
List of suggested personal equipment:
Weather in Patagonia is unpredictable. Not very cold, but it is usually windy. To dress in layers is the best advice. |
Latest post
13/04 - Argentina Mull Open Source Move
01/03 - Fossils Found of a Big Bird Kermit Wouldn't Like in Argentina
01/03 - Patagonia, Nature at its Most Pristine & Solitary
10/01 - Pixel: Photoshop for Linux
06/01 - Fossil Found of a Big Bird Kermit Wouldn’t Like
29/12 - Plant-insect association, with interest in biological control
19/12 - San Carlos de Bariloche
Argentina may become the first country in the world to require all government offices to use open-source software, pending the outcome of a bill recently introduced in the nation's congress.
The measure is sponsored by representative Marcelo Dragán as part of a national campaign against rampant software piracy in the South American country.
More than 60 percent of the computer programs in Argentina are illegal, costing the software industry about $200 million a year, according to the vendor trade association Software Legal.
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Until the country's intellectual property law was modified in November 1998, it was perfectly legal to copy software in Argentina. Today, anyone caught with pirated goods faces fines and up to six years in the slammer.
After a 45-day "truce" in the wake of the law's passage, the association targeted 15,000 firms it believed use crooked copies, based on an analysis of public data, such as tax and social security documents. Of the original targets, about 6,000 have rectified their situation, said association president Martín Carranza Torres.
Ironically, the government itself is one of the worst copyright violators. The association has pending lawsuits against several bureaucratic agencies, including the Secretariat of Tourism, the Federal Radio Committee and the Social Security Administration.
"It's a cultural issue, not a money issue," Carranza Torres insisted. "People just don't understand the value of software."
Not surprisingly, Carranza Torres is unhappy about the proposed bill.
"We are against any law that impedes free competition," he said. "There should be a transparent bidding process, where every program is analyzed objectively."
But switching to open-source software would mean big savings for the government, which is already crippled by a $145 billion debt, said Mario Albornoz, the director of the Institute of Social Studies of Science and Technology.
The measure would create jobs for local programmers and software development companies, but might also cause a lot of headaches for functionaries ill-prepared to install and maintain open systems, he added.
"The advantages and risks must be weighed openly in a dialogue that the government has yet to initiate," Albornoz said.
Latest post
01/03 - Fossils Found of a Big Bird Kermit Wouldn't Like in Argentina
01/03 - Patagonia, Nature at its Most Pristine & Solitary
10/01 - Pixel: Photoshop for Linux
06/01 - Fossil Found of a Big Bird Kermit Wouldn’t Like
29/12 - Plant-insect association, with interest in biological control
Fossil of a skull found in 15-million-year-old rock outcrops in Argentina. Fossils of the largest known bird, an extinct flightless predator with a skull the size of a horse’s and a menacing beak like an eagle’s, have been discovered in Argentina, paleontologists reported last week.
The big bird, which stood about 10 feet tall and probably weighed 400 pounds, was fleet of foot and able to chase down and devour rodents, reptiles and small mammals 15 million years ago on the plains of Patagonia. Not for nothing are its closely related species, a group known as phorusrhacids, more commonly called the “terror birds.”
Such avian giants evolved and prospered in the time of South America’s total isolation from other continents. All of these birds were apparently flightless, and most of them ate only plants. Until now, the only known species of carnivorous terror birds averaged five to nine feet tall and had relatively small heads.
Paleontologists said the new fossil discovery might force them to reconsider previous ideas that the terror birds that evolved the biggest bodies were significantly slower runners.
“This is not only the largest bird ever found,” said Luis M. Chiappe, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “It also tells us the idea we have heard and repeated over the years may not be entirely valid.”
Dr. Chiappe and Sara Bertelli, also at the Los Angeles museum, described the find in the current issue of the journal Nature. They said the skull, more than 28 inches long, was virtually complete and remarkably different from and at least 10 percent bigger than skulls of related species. The researchers inferred the bird’s running ability from its leg and foot bones.
“We conclude that reconstructions of the skull of gigantic phorusrhacids on the basis of smaller relatives are unwarranted,” the two paleontologists wrote, “and that the long-established correlation between their corpulence and reduced cursorial agility needs to be re-evaluated.”
The skull and limb bones were found two years ago by a high school student, Guillermo Aguirre-Zabala. They were embedded in 15-million-year-old rock outcrops near the railroad station in his home village, Comallo, Argentina, which is east of Bariloche, where the fossils, as yet unnamed, are kept at a paleontological museum.
Before the discovery, knowledge of the skulls of large-bodied terror birds was limited to fragmentary specimens collected more than two decades ago. So scientists tended to interpret and illustrate the heads of the bigger birds as scaled-up versions of the better-known smaller species. These smaller cousins were about two to two and a half feet tall, big for birds but hardly the stature of the predatory giants.
In their examination of the new specimen, Dr. Chiappe and Dr. Bertelli noted many distinctive skull traits, particularly the shape and proportions of the face, a lower and longer beak and a flat cranial roof.
Even more revealing, they said, were the long, slender leg bone and the foot bones fused together. The foot bones bore a superficial resemblance to the three-toed rhea, a living flightless bird. The newfound terror bird was indeed big, they surmised, but “substantially swifter” than had been assumed for other enormous species of its group.
“It may not have been as fast as an ostrich,” Dr. Chiappe said, referring to the speediest of living flightless birds, able to reach speeds around 45 m.p.h. “But it clearly was a land bird that could run fast.”
And with this ability, these big birds appear to have become the top predator of the continent for millions of years. Other fossil evidence shows that the phorusrhacids lived the fast life between 60 million and 2 million years ago, passing from the scene after the emergence of the Panamanian land bridge ended South America’s isolation.
Patagonia is a distinct geographical region, shared by Argentina and Chile, that lies within the cool temperate zone at the southernmost tip of South America. 
Southern Chile's coast is a wet, wild, densely forested and mountainous country, while a broad, semi-arid plateau out of which rise eroded tablelands called mesetas is the characteristic feature on the Argentine side. It is only at the Andes where the continuity of the two countries becomes apparent. The Patagonian Andes are 1,243 miles in length but average less than 62 miles wide. The range lies mainly on the Chilean side and the mountains have an average height of 6,560'. Such a vast and diverse territory, Patagonia is typically divided into three principle sections.
Northern Patagonia:
The north is characterized by temperate rainforests, volcanic cones, alpine lakes, and snow-capped glaciated peaks. Here abundant rainfall and fertile, volcanic soils create a perpetually green, rich farming country and dense, moist Valdivian forests. Volcanos are the predominant mountain feature, with roughly one occurring every 18 miles. Most are found on the Chilean side of the range although the area's highest peaks, Lanín (12,390') and Tronador (11,352'), are found in Argentina. Chile's Osorno (8,700') is often called the Fuji of the Andes because of its perfect cone shape. The region's geothermal activity has produced hundreds of hot springs around which popular resorts like Puyehue have been built. Known as the Lake District, northern Patagonia is dotted with 20 great lakes including Nahuel Huapi and Llanquihue plus hundreds of smaller lakes. The overall climate is cool and temperate with the lakes and sea moderating temperatures. Parque Nacional Lanín and Nahuel Huapi are Argentina's two main preserves. The latter covers nearly 3,000 square miles and was South America's first national park. Chile's eight parks are smaller but offer complete protection versus the multi-use status of their counterparts. Vicente Peréz Rosales and Puyehue are the largest. Huerquehue and Villarica are located in the northern part of the region near Pucón, and Conguillio and Llaima are found east of Temuco.
Central Patagonia:
South of Puerto Montt the broad longitudinal valleys are gone. On the Chilean side, the Andes are briefly submerged beneath the sea and the land starts to break up. The Chonos Archipelago, rainy, windswept islands that shelter the inland sea passage, are formed by the crests of the submerged Coastal Range. Until recently this area was accessible only by sea or long overland drive from Argentina making it the most pristine and thinly inhabited part of Patagonia. Queulat and Isla Magdalena national parks spotlight the area's exquisite natural beauty while San Rafael, the closest glacier to the equator that reaches the sea, is becoming a popular destination. On the Argentine side two parks are the highlights: Los Alerces and Lago Puelo. Los Alerces includes about 1,000 square miles and conserves some of the most pristine stands of giant Alerce trees. Heading east across the Argentine plains to the Atlantic coast we find some of South America's most important marine wildlife reserves: Punta Tombo with its thousands of Magellanic penguins; and Península Valdés where sea elephants and southern right whales breed.
Southern Patagonia:
Below the 46°S parallel, volcanos occur only sporadically and the average height of the mountains is 6,600'. The Andes are covered by the most extensive area of glaciers outside of the poles: Hielo Norte, roughly 60 miles in length and encompassing 1,700 square miles; and Hielo Sur, about 200 miles long and covering nearly 5,500 square miles, which together make up the Continental Ice Cap. Monte San Valentin, considered the highest peak in Patagonia at 12,830', towers above the ice cap's northeastern flanks, and the most famous Patagonian mountains, Cerro Torre, Fitz Roy and the Paine Towers and Horns, all jut out from the edges of the ice. Large, low lying lakes such as Lago Buenos Aires, the second largest natural lake in South America, and Lagos Viedma and Argentino mark the Argentine side of the mountains. Glaciers Park outside of El Calafate boasts 2,300 square miles in total area. It includes 13 distinct, massive glaciers including Perito Moreno and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.
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Punta Arenas is the largest Chilean city south of Puerto Montt, and Río Gallegos is the most southerly city on the Argentina mainland. The climate of southern Patagonia is more extreme. On the Chilean side it is heavily influenced by the close proximity of the ocean. Antarctic currents with average temperatures of 40°F flow past the coast and violent westerlies bring the famous Patagonia wind along with staggering quantities of snow or rain. The Andes, however, are an effective barricade making the Chilean side of southern Patagonia moist and forested while the Argentine side is arid, and away from the mountains, quite barren. From Puerto Natales on the Last Hope Sound the dry steppes so typical of Patagonia extend eastward to the Atlantic Ocean.
A fourth region, often considered its own destination, is made up of the island of Tierra del Fuego, South America's largest island. Fairly equally divided between Argentina and Chile, the latter half is mostly uninhabited, nearly inaccessible wilderness while the Argentine side has a much larger population and roads have been built to all but its most remote corners. The Andes are submerged under sea at the Straits of Magellan and surface again to run west-to-east in what is known as the Cordillera Darwin. Peaks average about 6,000 feet or lower in elevation and glaciers reach the ocean in a landscape reminiscent of Alaska. Ushuaia, located on the Beagle Channel, is the largest city and the starting or ending port for most expeditions navigating the waters of Cape Horn to Antarctica (a portion of which belongs to Chile & Argentina among other nations).
Latest post
10/01 - Pixel: Photoshop for Linux
06/01 - Fossil Found of a Big Bird Kermit Wouldn’t Like
29/12 - Plant-insect association, with interest in biological control
19/12 - San Carlos de Bariloche
I recently stumbled across a very promising alternative to Adobe Photoshop which runs on many different operating systems (and no, it’s not The Gimp!). This is especially good news for Linux users who are tired of running the outdated Photoshop 7.0 in WINE (although some have gotten CS2 to work).
For quite some time website developers using Linux as their operating system of choice have been pretty much forced to use The Gimp as their image editor. Since I use Linux as my operating system, this made things very difficult. I found that The Gimp wasn’t exactly my kind of image editor. It didn’t seem to have the same kind of feel as Photoshop. So like many others I used the very old Photoshop 7.0 in WINE. This didn’t really work either. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as Photoshop CS2 or CS3.
Now things are changing. A new image editing software is emerging. It’s simply called Pixel. It is very similar to Photoshop so when using it, there really isn’t very much to learn. It’s kind of like using Photoshop, just slightly different. Some of the features include:
However, this lovely bit of software is not free. But compared to Photoshop, it might as well be. At only $38 USD, you can’t go wrong with buying this (and no, they didn’t pay me to say that). You can still download the trial for free which has all the same features as the full version, but all your images will end up with a quite noticeable watermark on them. If your planning on buying, you better buy soon. Once Pixel is out of beta stage, it will cost as much as $89 USD, which is still a very decent price for software of this caliber.
Performance
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The current release of Pixel is Beta 6, and there is still some unimplemented functionality. Not all effects are available for all color models and bit depths, some menu items are greyed out in the build that I tested (including, regrettably, the built-in bug report tool), some TIFF compression is unsupported, and tablet support is still forthcoming for Linux.
Kanzelsberger says he regards the current feature set as frozen, and assures customers that all of these holes will be filled by the 1.0 release. Expansion of the feature set -- such as "natural media" effects and vector operations -- are earmarked for the 2.0 branch.
Experienced Photoshop users will miss certain features in Pixel. Pixel ships with just over 100 filters and effects; a subset of the more expensive program's offering, but -- as is analogous to the free-versus-Microsoft office suites situation -- the most useful subset.
The selection tools are also more modest; I missed the ability to expand or contract selections, which is present in Photoshop. Text tool operations are solid, but don't expect anything fancy, such as fitting text to a path. If you can do without these specific functions, however, Pixel may be just what you are looking for.
Exempting the disabled features, Pixel performs admirably on Linux. Effects and adjustment tools are full-featured, permitting precise keyboard-input parameter tweaking and the loading and saving of presets.
In one week of testing I experienced only one crash, which I was unable to reproduce. It occurred when working with a Lab color image. Pixel had no trouble opening 50-100MB image files, sizes that routinely segfault the GIMP.
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Pixel and open source
Pixel is neither free nor open source. A license purchased now (during the beta phase) costs $32, but will remain good for all updates up to and including Pixel 2.0, and can be used for all available platforms simultaneously. After Kanzelsberger completes Pixel 1.0, however, the price for a license will go up to $100.
Kanzelsberger is by no means against open source, though; he is a Gentoo Linux user and Pixel links against several free libraries. He simply charges for Pixel as a means of supporting himself and continuing its development.
For the most part, Kanzelsberger says, Linux users have been positive in their comments on his work. There is the occasional gripe that he should release the project for free, but most welcome the alternative to expensive graphics suites from Adobe and Macromedia.
Kanzelsberger has expressed willingness to open source the eLiquid GUI toolkit in response to a growing number of programmers' requests. After all, it is fast, lightweight, and runs on a dozen operating systems. An eLiquid release definitely won't happen until after Pixel 1.0, though, as he wants to focus on completing his main project, and organizing and documenting the eLiquid code base will take time.
Wrap up
There is very little in the way of consumer-priced commercial software for Linux, particularly in the graphics arena. There are studio-level 3D and compositing applications bearing four- and five-digit price tags, but almost nothing in wallet range for the individual.
For photo editing and raster graphics, many users see running Photoshop under WINE as the only choice for tasks they can't handle with the GIMP. Certainly, if you already own a copy of Photoshop or one of the expensive bundles that include it, it is a reasonable option. But if you don't, you will find 90% of what you need running natively on Linux at a fraction of the cost by switching to Pixel.
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First record in Argentina of a plant-insect association, with interest in biological control
The species Chrysolina quadrigemina (Suffrian) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) is recorded for the first time in Argentina, this being also the first record of this genus in the country. Its host plant, Hypericum perforatum L. (Clusiaceae) is native from Asia, Europe and Africa, and has behaved as a strong invader in several countries of the world where the implementation of a biological control program was necessary. The only country in South America that implemented such a control was Chile, in 1953. The arrival of C. quadrigemina to southern Argentina is probably due to natural dispersion from Chile. This record increases the number of Chrysomelidae species in the country.
Keywords: Coleoptera; Chrysomelidae; Chrysolina; Hypericum
INTRODUCTION
The St.-John‘s –wort, Hypericum perforatum L. (Clusiaceae), is a native of Asia, Europe and Africa (Julien & Griffiths 1998), widely naturalized elsewhere (Wiersema & León 1999). Holloway (1957) described it as an erect, freely branching perennial herb with a stem one to five feet high. Its flowers are yellow and occur in clusters; its light green leaves are numerous and paired along the stem. Its root crown has Comunicación breve many lateral runners which are capable of starting new plants; thus the spread of the plant is not entirely dependent on its seeds. These are produced in a pod which breaks into segments, releasing numerous small, cylindrical brown seeds which are spread by wind, water, man and animals (Holloway 1957). This plant has some positive values. It produces essential oils and lipids and Folk traditions assigned antiviral or antidepressive properties (Wiersema & León 1999).
However, it is considered a pest in most part of its exotic range. In the United States, St.- John‘s wort was first reported in 1793 near Lancaster. By 1940 the infestation of the weed had occupied 27 counties and 250.000 acres of range land. The economic damage that it produced was very important (Holloway 1957). As a weed, it competes with the cultivated forage. It is also an important poison for mammals and adversely affect cattle and sheep that graze on it (Holloway 1957). It also produces contamination of seeds as weed (Wiersema & León 1999).
Chrysolina hyperici (Foster) and Chrysolina quadrigemina (Suffrian) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) are two biological control agents which were released in Australia (1930, 1980), Canada (1951), New Zealand (1943), Republic of South Africa (1960, 1973), and United States (1945) with the purpose to control Hypericum perforatum (Julien & Griffiths 1998). Liberation of the insects in these countries was done after exhaustive tests of host specifity; an established practice in biological control procedures (De Loach et al. 1989).
Hypericum perforatum L. has been recorded as a naturalized and widely distributed weed in Neuquén (area of Nahuel Huapi) and Chubut provinces, occasionally occurring in Buenos Aires and La Pampa provinces (Dimitri 1972; Cabrera 1965; Boelcke 1981; Zuluaga & Morrone 1999). Biological control of Hypericum has never been considered in Argentina (De Loach et al. 1989), but this weed has the potential to cause problems in the future, as happened in the United States (Boelcke 1981). In contrast, Chile has implemented a biological control program for this weed in 1953, in which both Chrysolina species were liberated and successfully established (Julien & Griffiths 1998). In 1952, 27300 adults of Chrysolina were imported from California and liberated in 1953. By 1959, 7000 ha were controlled (De Loach et al.1989).
The objective of this work is to describe the first record of Chrysolina quadrigemina (Suffrian) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) in Argentina, and to discuss the relevance of this discovery under the context of biological control of the weed Hypericum perforatum L.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
During December 2004 and January 2005, the author was looking for chrysomelid fauna in different plants in Villa La Angostura, Península Quetrihue, Lago Correntoso, San Martín de los Andes (Neuquén Province) and San Carlos de Bariloche (Río Negro Province). Photos of the insects eating plants were taken and then, insect specimens were captured by hand on burgeons of living plants. One plant species was Hypericum perforatum. The presence of the beetles eating an exotic plant called the attention of the author. The chrysomelids taken from them were kept in the Entomology Division of the "Bernardino Rivadavia" Argentine National Museum, authors' collection Paola Turienzo, Buenos Aires, and Gary Piper, Washington, United States. The distinction from closely related Chrysolina species is difficult because of their similar size and color pattern (Piper 2004). For this reason, some specimens were sent to G. Piper, who identified them. The identification of the Hypericum species was done by O. R. Di Iorio, using Dimitri´s keys (1972).
In a second year of field work, during the months of December 2005 and January 2006, the author returned to the same places mentioned above and also visited a new locality, El Bolsón (Río Negro province) to search for this insect-plant association.
The methodology used was the same of the previous year. Only some specimens were taken from the plants and were kept in the Paola Turienzo´s collection, Buenos Aires, and Penner & Herrera´s collection (Essen, Germany). The total amount of specimens in each plant was counted.
RESULTS
From the two species liberated in Chile, Chrysolina hyperici (Foster) and Chrysolina quadrigemina (Suffrian) (Julien & Griffiths 1998), only the latter was found in Argentina. It was collected from Los Lagos Departament (Neuquén Province). Data of localities, date and number of specimens collected can be seen in Table 1. In Villa La Angostura, the plant was distributed in the town and around it, mainly in margin roads. D. Penner & L. Herrera (Essen, Germany) found them near Bariloche city, in the crossing of routes 237 and 231.
Insect distribution between plants was not uniform and few Hypericum plants were heavily infested; most of the individuals being free of beetles. For example, in Villa La Angostura town, during the summer of 2005-2006, only three groups of Hypericum attacked by Chrysolina were found. About 20 plants per group were observed to be infested by the beetles. The number of insects found ranged from one to six per plant.
Table 1. Localities, data and numbers of specimens of Chrysolina quadrigemina captured.
Tabla 1. Localidades, fechas y cantidad de especies capturadas de Chrysolina quadrigemina.
DISCUSSION
The insect genus has not been previously recorded for Argentina (Cabrera & Roig-Juñent 1998, 2004). Therefore, this constitutes a new record for the Chrysomelidae fauna of the country.
The presence of Chrysolina in southern Argentina is probably consequence of its natural dispersion from Chile, following patches of Hypericum throughout the years. The ability for dispersal of this species has been previously analysed by Holloway (1957), who described that it is capable of long, sustained flights.
It would be most interesting, in future studies about the plant and insect distribution, to conduct further research on the population dynamics of insects and their relations with biological control practices.
San Carlos de Bariloche is a city in the province of Río Negro, Argentina, situated on the foothills of the Andes, surrounded by lakes (Nahuel Huapi, Gutiérrez Lake, Moreno Lake and Mascardi Lake) and mountains (Tronador, Cerro Catedral, Cerro López). It is famous for skiing but also great for sight-seeing, water sports, trekking and climbing. Cerro Catedral is one of the most important ski centers in South America.
The name Bariloche comes from the Mapudungun word Vuriloche meaning "people from behind the mountain" (furi = behind, che = people). The Vuriloche pass was used by the Mapuches to cross the Andes and was kept secret from the European priests for a long time.
In 1672 the jesuits established in Chiloé Island founds a mission in the Nahuel Huapi Lake that last until 1717
Settled primarily by Austrians and Germans about 1895, it was first named after pioneer Carlos Wiederhold was born in Germany but had migrated to San Carlos de Bariloche, who established a little shop called "La Alemana" near the present city center after crossing the Andes from Chile. Most of the commerce in Bariloche went by the seaport of Puerto Montt in Chile. In 1896 Perito Moreno wrote that it took three days to reach Puerto Montt from Bariloche while traveling to Viedma in the Atlantic coast took "one month or more". In letters addressed to him, he was erroneously addressed San Carlos instead of Don Carlos, which is why the city was called San Carlos de Bariloche.
In the 1930s the centre of the city was built to have the appearance of an alpine town with many buindings made of wood and stone. and a population of 93,600 (2001 census [INDEC], 1991: 77,600). In 1909 there were 1,250 inhabitants, telegraph, post office, and a road connecting the city with Neuquén. Commerce, however, continued to depend on Chile until the arrival of the railroad in 1934.
Between 1935 and 1940, the Directorate of National Parks carried over a number of urbanistic works, giving the city a characteristic beauty. Among them: the Civic Center (home of a Library, a Theatre, a Museum, the City Hall, the Post Office, the Police Station and the Customs), the Cathedral, Llao Llao Hotel, and others.
Bariloche made headlines in the international press in 1995 when it became known that a former high ranking official of the SS 'Hauptsturmführer' Erich Priebke had been living there for years.[1]
A typical log cabin in Bariloche.
Tourism, both domestic and international, is the main economic activity of Bariloche, all year around. The main ski station is the one at Cerro Catedral. During the summer, beautiful beaches such as Playa Bonita and Villa Tacul welcome sun-bathers and some brave lake swimmers (the waters, from melting snow, are always very cold. Lake Nahuel Huapi averages 14 °C in the summertime). The fishing season is another great attraction. Bariloche is the biggest city of a huge Lakes District, and serves as a base for many excursions in the region. Trekking in the mountains, almost completely wild and uninhabited with the exception of a few high-mountain huts, is also a popular activity. The city is also famous for its chocolates.
It is also noteworthy that the city serves as the destination for Argentine secondary school students on their traditional senior year trips. The students are shepherded through week-long excursion packages including snowboarding, 4X4 excursions and passes to a series of night clubs. The students, who travel during their winter break in July, fill the town with mobs wearing identical, travel agency-issued cold-weather gear.
Besides tourism and the many activities and services associated with it, Bariloche is home to first class scientific and technological activities. The Centro Atómico Bariloche [2] is a research center of the National Atomic Energy Commission, where basic and applied research in many areas of the physical sciences is carried out. One of its departments is the Instituto Balseiro [3], a higher education institution with a small and carefully selected number of students, that awards degrees in Physics, and in Nuclear and Mechanical Engineering, and Masters and Doctorate degrees in Physics and in Engineering. The city also hosts INVAP, a high technology company that designs and builds nuclear reactors and space satellites, among other projects. In addition, there are also several departments and laboratories of the Comahue University.
Bariloche has an inland Temperate climate.
| [hide]Weather averages for San Carlos de Bariloche | |||||||||||||
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| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
| Average high °C (°F) | 21.5 (71) | 21.8 (71) | 19.0 (66) | 14.6 (58) | 10.1 (50) | 6.7 (44) | 6.4 (44) | 7.9 (46) | 10.7 (51) | 14.0 (57) | 17.3 (63) | 19.7 (67) | |
| Average low °C (°F) | 6.4 (44) | 5.7 (42) | 4.0 (39) | 1.8 (35) | 0.6 (33) | -1.0 (30) | -1.4 (29) | -0.9 (30) | -0.5 (31) | 1.1 (34) | 3.5 (38) | 5.4 (42) | |
| Precipitation mm (inch) | 22.2 (0.9) | 21.7 (0.9) | 29.2 (1.1) | 53.5 (2.1) | 134.0 (5.3) | 140.7 (5.5) | 128.7 (5.1) | 115.6 (4.6) | 57.8 (2.3) | 38.8 (1.5) | 24.8 (1) | 32.0 (1.3) | |
| Source: worldweather.org [2] 04 September, 2007 | |||||||||||||
The city is served by San Carlos de Bariloche International Airport (IATABRC/ICAO SAZS) equipped to receive any kind of aircraft. Several of the Argentina's most important airlines maintain regular flights to Bariloche, as well as some international lines from neighboring countries, especially during the ski season.
The city lies close to Chilean border and is connected to Chile by the Cardenal Antonio Samoré Pass crossing the Andes Mountains.
The Valdes Peninsula (Spanish Península Valdés) is a peninsula along the Atlantic coast in the Biedma Department in the north east of Chubut Province, Argentina. Its size is about 3,625 km². The nearest large town is Puerto Madryn.
Most of the peninsula is barren land with some salt lakes. The largest of these lakes is at an elevation of about 40 m below sea level, until recently thought to be the lowest elevation in Argentina and South America. (The lowest point being Laguna del Carbón, Argentina).
It is an important nature reserve which was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999. The coastline is inhabited by marine mammals, like sea lions, elephant seals and fur seals. Southern right whales can be found in Golfo Nuevo and Golfo San José, protected bodies of water located between the peninsula and the Patagonian mainland.
These baleen whales come here between May and December, for mating and giving birth, because the water in the gulf is quieter and warmer than in the open sea. Orcas can be found off the coast, in the open sea off the peninsula. In this area, they are known to beach themselves on shore to capture sea lions and elephant seals.
The inner part of the peninsula is inhabited by rheas, guanacos and maras. A high diversity and range of birds live in the peninsula as well; at least 181 bird species, 66 of which migratory, live in the area, including the Antarctic Pigeon.
Península Valdés in Patagonia is a site of global significance for the conservation of marine mammals. It is home to an important breeding population of the endangered southern right whale as well as important breeding populations of southern elephant seals and southern sea lions. The orcas in this area have developed a unique hunting strategy to adapt to local coastal conditions.
Criterion (x): Peninsula Valdés contains very important and significant natural habitats for the in-situ conservation of several threatened species of outstanding universal value, and specifically its globally important concentration of breeding southern right whales, which is an endangered species. It is also important because of the breeding populations of southern elephant seals and southern sea lions. The area exhibits an exceptional example of adaptation of hunting techniques by the orca to the local coastal conditions.
GENERAL INFORMATION OF THE AREA
PN Tierra del Fuego (Tierra del Fuego national park) was created in 1960 through the Law Nº 15.554 and covers a 63.000 hectares surface. It is situated in Patagonic Forest and Altos Andes eco-regions.
The Patagonic Forest eco-region is characterized by a climate that goes from warm to cold, with snows and winter rains. It has a landscape dominated by high and irregular mountains, with glacier valleys and “semidesiduos” forests.
Altos Andes eco-region is characterized by a hills chain and slopes over “endorreicas” plains.
CULTURAL RESOURCES
The first inhabitants
The first human occupation of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego was 10.000 years ago. It was occupied by a large ethnic variety. This situation shows that they related very much with a difficult environment like this one.
In the current Park lived the yamana tribe. In the Beagle Channel coasts and in Roca Lake exist many sites that show an ancestral relationship between the inhabitants and the nature.
The inhabitants installed their camps in the beaches in order to take advantage of maritime resources. They travel by canoe, constructed with branches and "lenga's" wood, and dedicated to sea wolfs hunt and molluscs collection. Through the coast visitors can find the rests accumulated of that consume. They used to live in huts made by branches and trunks and their clothes were just leather layers.
These groups disappeared when the first creoles and European settlers appeared in 1880. Diseases were the cause of the extinction of the culture. Other reasons were the “shoot exercises” of the european explorer, who also poisoned the aborigines in order to be free to exploit the sea wolfs. The demographic information is incredible: at the beginning of the settler's arrival, in 1880, there were 3.000 yamanas, but ten years later they were only 1.000. And in 1910 they were no more than a hundred
NATURAL RESOURCES
Landscapes, flora and fauna
The landscape of the area is complex and abrupt because of the erosive action of the glacier accumulation process, which doesn't exist nowadays. After much geomorphologic process, the Cordillera de los Andes raised as a group of mountain chains that surrounded a deep forest valleys crossed by rivers and lakes.
In the coast sector there are Lapataia and Ensenada Bays, where precipices and little beaches are intercalated and constituted an ideal ambient for a seaside “avifauna”.
Between the flora that characterized the “Andino-Patagonico” forests, the “lenga” is the better distributed, forming large extensions of pure forests that covers the mountain slopes from the level of the sea to 600 metres.
The “guindo” or “coihue de Magallanes” coexists with the “lenga” in the wettest areas, like in Pipo River Valley and in some mountain slopes in the south side. Over their branches lives the “farolito chino”, a “hemiparasita”, and the “pande indio” or “llao llao”, a parasite fungus.
The pure “guindo” forests develop in the rainiest areas, like Beagle channel coast. There also grows other species from the wet forest like the 2canelo” and the “leña dura”.
In many places the “canelo” is abundant and forms little forests. In the windiest regions the “guindo” acquires a particular shape, known as “arbol bandera”. The prickly bushes like “calafate”, “chaura” and “michay” –which has orangey flowers- grows in the “sotobosque”.
In the wettest grounds grows “frutilla del diablo” and little ferns. During the summer plants with beautiful flowers like "orquideas amarillas" and "luzuriagas" cover the “sotobosque” ground.
Is common to see in marginal areas of the forests “mata negra” brushes accompanied by “calafate”, “parrilla” and “notro”. This last specie, with red tubular flowers typical of the spring of Tierra del Fuego, can be found also in the Beagle Channel coast and in the west side of Lapataia Bay.
On top of 600 metres over the sea level develops the “altoandina” vegetation composed by little bushes, plants “en cojin” and “gramineas”. They develop over rocky grounds that alternated with “vegas” or “malines de altura”. The vegetation of this ambient is adapted because of the wind exposition, the water disponibility and physics characteristics of the ground.
The “turbales” or “turberas” are typical of Tierra del Fuego landscape. Rests of vegetables compressed by the relief depressions compose the “turba”. The “turba” growth is only possible in wet areas, where low temperatures are registered and avoids organic matter decomposition. Low pressure in a less oxygen and acid ambient produced the slowly died plants accumulation that produced the “turba”.
One of the typical herbs that grows in the marine area of the Park is the “siempreviva”, and also grows there little bushes like “chaura” and “mutilla”, and “liquenes” and “musgos” covers the rocks next to the sea.
In the maritime littoral “cachiyuyo” forests, big seaweed, stands out. In the area live a little wild animals variety, composed by twenty mammals specimens and ninety types of birds. But there isn't any amphibian.
One of the mammals that can be easily seen is the “zorro colorado fueguino”. The “guanaco” is an herbivorous that lives in the high zones almost the whole year and only goes down to low valleys during the winter.
Other specimens like the “murcielago orejas de raton”, “raton colilargo”, “rata conejo” and “raton lanoso”, and “huillin” (a carnivorous aquatic mammal from the otter family that lives in the Beagle Channel coasts and in Lapataia Bay) are also present in the area. The flashiest and most present birds in the visited areas are three types of “cauquenes”. They are “cauquen comun”, “cauquen real” and “caranca”, which lives in opened places and beaches. In some occasions they are accompanied by noisy “bandurrias”. Other typical birds are “carpintero patagónico”, “maca común”, "maca grande”, “garza bruja”, "pato creston”, “pato overo”, "pato maicero”, “aguila mora”, "carancho austral”, “chimango” and "tero común”. Usually condors can be seen over flying the peaks and “fueguinos” valleys.
In the marine coast, during the low tide, “diente de perro”, “mejillones”, and red and green seaweed can be seen.
In Lapataia Bay and in the estuary that forms the Cormoranes Archipelago are many molluscs like “mejillones” and “lapas”. Also abounds other molluscs like the “vieira”, the “caracol de luna”, “caracol con diente”, some crustaceans like “centolla” and native fishes, like “sardina fueguina”, “merluza de cola” and “robalo”.
During the summer, in crystal clear jellyfish concentrations can be seen. Also is possible to observe different birds like “gaviotas”, “patos vapor”, “ostreros” and “cormoranes”.
WALKS AND SERVICES
The maintenance is in Ushuaia city. Inside the protected area there is an organized camp in Roca Lake zone, and many free camps in Lapataia and Ensenada Bay and in Pipo River. This Park has short pedestrian paths, which starts from dif
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