La Falda Winter 2016: Day 3

Today I visited Valle Hermoso, its cemetery and old trains by the ConCiencia museum and the balneario Dique La Isla. Then I went back to La Falda, walked by some really nice abandoned houses and hotels, and cycled up ending at Dique La Falda and the municipal cemetery.

The first part of the ride was quite fast as it is mostly downhill. Before arriving at the cemtery I stopped by the ConCiencia museum. The guy in charge was closing it but gave me permission to look around the property, there are tons of abandoned trains and related machinery.

He then slowly disappeared on a small electric tramway towards his home. How cool is that?

A couple of them are ‘modern’ but most of the interesting stuff is from the steam era.

The trains blend nicely with a dense vegetation

After drifting at the train graveyard I went to the Valle Hermoso cemetery.

There were a couple of workers tending to the grass and building another alcove to house more coffins.

Some places are very well cared but others look like nobody was around in decades. I like that.

Some of the graves were open and you could walk away with the coffin, bones or old relics of yore.

In spite of the age the door locks held better and I wasn’t able to pick any (and having people come and go did not help).

Then I went to Capilla San Antonio. The view of the valley is great. It also had a spreadsheet detailing the church finances, it was a very nice touch, first time I see that kind of honesty on a church.

I walked by the minerals and gemstones museum but it was closed, so I headed to Dique La Isla. It was a bit more dirty than what I like but the water was very refreshing. I sat there playing the melodica for a while then I returned to the main route.

Back in La Falda I decided to visit the dique and municipal cemetery.

A couple of blocks from my hotel there’s this really big and abandoned hotel.

Almost all of the doors are locked, the windows chained and welded. There are signs of people living, according to the neighbors the owner is still there and from time to time allows people to wander inside.

I clapped to no avail (there was a very nice and expensive japanese car parked inside) but no one answered.

The park that borders Avenida Kennedy is very well maintained and people routinely uses it to walk animals.

Just around the bus station on the meeting of Maipú, Chubut and Río Negro there’s a wonderful antique store run by a nice lady called Mercedes.

The enameled sign reads (it’s an ad for a burlesque house, cvs means cents):

Tarifas de la Renombrada Casa de la Tolerancia de Madam Ivonne.

Bucal: 50 cvs
Normal: 90cvs
Media Hora 1.20 cvs
1 Hora Entera: 1.50 Pesos
C/2 Señoritas Juntas: 5.00 Pesos

Agua Jabón y Toalla

Aproveche las ofertas de la casa

I went to the other extreme from Valle Hermoso trying to reach the cemetery of La Falda, it’s past the entrance to Siete Cascadas, most of the way going up.

When I reached it it was past closing time, despite the nice pictures available online it looked a bit unkempt and it’s surrounded by a dumpster. I did not return again.

As of today google street view has pictures from 2013. It’s amazing how everything there decayed in only three years.

The view of the lake is wonderful.

On my way back from La Falda Cemetery I detoured because there was a spot with a wonderful view.

On the floor I found a lot of electronic scrap, computer power supplies, german tv chassis from the 80’s judging by the caps and ‘ausgang’. Chipped consoles. A Pinball table. Some joysticks.

I took some tv flybacks (the ones that look like a pancake and have an external tripler) and some ferrite cores that escaped the fire.

Digging a bit with a stick most of that place was electronic junk and dirt, underneath the grass there was more and more, progressively older the more I dug.

Then I painfully returned to the hotel. It was a short trip at 20Km but the slope of the road killed me. There’s an occupied Mansion at Guemes and Juan José Castro.

The rest of the pictures is here https://www.flickr.com/photos/40523294@N08/sets/72157671823845530/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.