History
              of Bariloche
                  and Lake Nahuel Huapi

Man appears in Patagonia between ten and thirty thousand years B.C., during the higher Paleolithic Period. Testimony of this are the findings of numerous negative rock paintings of hands, similar to the ones found in Europe.

During the latter part of the Stone Age there was a peaceful coexistence, around Nahuel Huapi, between three different Indian tribes. This ended around the 17th century with the arrival of the Araucanos. Due to the relentless Spanish invader, the Mapuche or Araucanos came over from Chile and their culture absorbed the previous tribes.

Fifty years earlier, Captain Don Francisco de César, heard rumors of the existence of a fabulous city built of gold and precious stone on the shores of a large lake in the southern territories. The Church and the Army set off in a vain attempt to find the city. They found it impossible to civilize the Indians and met a tragic death.

For more than a century there was no more news from this area until new expeditions started around 1860. The "Desert Campaign" totally subdued the Indian remnants in 1879.

White man - the Europeans - completely took over the archeological remains and destroyed the remaining Indian culture of the Lake District.

Carlos Wiederhold built the first general store in the area in 1895, but San Carlos de Bariloche is officially founded on the 3rd of May, 1902. It was named Carlos in honor of Mr. Wiederhold and Bariloche, from the Indian term "Vuriloche". Thanks to the visit of president Theodor Roosevelt in 1913, the first road was completed. In 1921 the first plane arrived at Bariloche from San Fernando, province of Buenos Aires, where it left the day before with three stop-overs. A decade later the first train arrived.

In 1936 several important buildings such as the Cathedral, the Civic Centre, Llao Llao hotel and San Eduardo Church made up the centre for a future tourist attraction.
 

History of lake Nahuel Huapi (info found on this page.)

The Nahuel Huapi National Park ( from the Araucano words Nahuel = tiger and Huapi = island) extends over 750,000 hectares (1,875,000 acres) of which 330.000 (825.000 acres) is a National Reserve. Situated in the southwest of Neuquén province and northwest of Río Negro, it stretches from the Patagonian steppes to the high South American Andes.

To the west, its highest peaks delimit the border with Chile. Among these are the impressive peaks of Tronador (3554 metres), a tri-peaked mountain with one peak in Argentina, one in Chile and one in "no-man's land." Other peaks are Campana, Capilla, López and Catedral (between 1800 and 2400 metres high). Between these high peaks there are several deep valleys that allow easy crossing to Chile through passes such as Cardenal Samoré, Pérez Rosales and Vuriloche.

Another interesting feature is the quantity of lakes and rivers, that due to the abundant rains and the melting of snow and glaciers rush down either to the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean.

Lake Nahuel Huapi, covering an area of 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) and with the maximum depth of 464 metres around Puerto Blest, is the most important of the area. Other lakes are Perito Moreno, Gutierrez, Mascardi, Los Moscos, Hess, Fonck, Guillelmo and Steffen.

The most important feature of this National Park is its diversity of habitats, such as the large lake and river system, the sub-antartic and valdivian cold forests, the dry steppes, lowland forest undergrowth and high Andean ranges that host interesting native flora and fauna.

In spite of man's devastating effect on nature, the local fauna is no less rich than its flora. The variety of habitats host a number of interesting species: Along the waterways we can find the native perch and river otter; down on the steppes many raptors, guanaco, rhea and patagonian hare and up in the snow covered peaks we find the magestic cóndor, puma and huemul. In the dense undergrowth there are pudú and chucao and in the open wetlands lapwing and adean geese.

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KIBANA-SHAKUNAGE (Rhododendron aureum): One of the Alpine Rhododendrons. Its pale-yellow color is expressed in both the Japanese and the Latin name (image).