Partly because of the big stoke I have that Tim Patterson is down in El Bolson right now, I wanted to republish a piece I wrote for the local Nederland, Colorado newpaper (The Mountain-Ear) here at Matador. This was part of a column I used to write entitled "Mountain Lookout," and was originally published in Spring 2005.

Planting Trees in El Bolsón

1. The Right Place

We came to Patagonia with dreams of finding the right place. Although both of us felt at home in Colorado, it wasn’t our lugar en el mundo—as Laura called it—our place in the world, at least not year-round. We were isolated from our friends and family living in South America, and needed a place that was accessible to them.  

Above all, we sought a place with unspoiled land and water. And yet, fulfilling this requirement by living in of the middle of the forest, distant from any town, wasn’t enough. We wanted to be part of a community, without having to depend—as was the case in Nederland—on a vehicle to get there.   

There were plenty of small, idyllic towns in Patagonia. Built on the shores of clear-flowing rivers and emerald lakes, they were famous for hunting, fly-fishing, and skiing. But most of them were on their way to becoming, or had already become playgrounds for rich Argentines, Americans, and Europeans. Certainly a tourist infrastructure provided benefits such as good shops, restaurants, theatres, and medical facilities, but an all too-common pattern throughout Latin America was that towns with economies dependent on tourism usually ended up ruining the land, the water, or if not, became so crowded that they had a similar effect: ruining whatever it was that brought tourists in the first place. Even more detrimental was when tourism displaced a local, land-based economy (e.g. agriculture, fishing) that had sustained itself for generations. Most damaging of all was when too many outsiders—attracted to these places for their offerings and cheap (for them) land prices—moved in, building second or third homes, driving wedges of disparity into the local population.    

And so we were wary. The last thing we wanted was to join a foreign population that was slowly strangling out a town’s original inhabitants. The key was finding a place with a sustainable economy independent of tourism. Better still was a municipal government that preserved and protected this economy and its wellspring of resources. If we could find such a place, we were ready to invest our savings on a piece of land there.    

2. Day one

The easternmost road in El Bolsón was a single dirt lane passing beside a cypress forest at the foot of the mountains. To the north were chacras, great plantations with fields of raspberries, lettuce, and corn. There were apple, pear, and plum orchards, and hops for the local organic breweries. We didn’t know it then, but we were on El Camino de Los Nogales, (Road of the Hickories) which led to the largest farms, dairies, and plantations in El Bolsón.

We climbed into the foothills, past several cabins with smoking stovepipes, gardens, and roaming sheep.  The road became too rough, and we got out. I felt embarrassed getting out with a camera, unmistakably a tourist, coming here, it seemed, to film these people’s backyards. But as soon as I turned around my self-consciousness vanished. Looking down for my first time into El Bolsón I saw a massive green pocket (the literal translation of Bolsón),walled-in by the snowcapped cordillera, hanging, it seemed, from the sky.

We continued past a rural school with a greenhouse, soccer field, and makeshift weather lab. Just beyond the school, tucked into the cypress forest, a thin channel of water cascaded hundreds of feet into a pool. A couple of tubes partially intercepted the flow, carrying it to a storage tank. Here was pure drinking water direct from the mountains to the school and the local residents.

Which, we quickly learned, included several animals: dogs barked down the road, then there was a hurried clopping of hooves. A pair of big bay horses, an Appaloosa, and her foal had come to drink at the stream. They slowly grazed back down the hill, nibbling sprigs of mint.    

On the way back we paused once more at the school. A poem painted on the wall read:

            What will become of me

            when there are no more

            Cypress trees?  

            How can I tell my children about them

            with none left to show them?

3. Barrio Arrayánes

The history of El Bolsón is one of the youngest in the Americas, rare in that it’s free of bloodshed. With no evidence of Indian settlements in the region, the first permanent residents were cattle herders who populated the zone in 1883. They were followed by waves of immigrants including Albanians, Croats, Slovenes, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and Germans, who, notably, traded services and commodities as opposed to using money until 1930. 

But even before we learned about its history, visited the Artisans’ Fair, or studied its economic sustainability (El Bolsón being one of the largest fine fruit producers in Argentina), Laura and I knew our place was here. Seeing the school beside the waterfall—seeing that a place like that could exist—was all it took.        

In the next two days, the process of finding land and signing a contract flowed effortlessly. A local realtor—himself an old-time Chacarero (one who works in a chacra)—showed us a couple plots off Camino Los Nogales. The area, Barrio Arrayánes, was once a huge chacra owned by a man famous for bringing a statue of the Virgin Mary from Italy to El Bolsón. The man had no family, and before he died, he willed the entire chacra to the town, with the caveat that the land would be divided into smaller plots where young families could have their own homes and land to cultivate. After drawing the plat, the town, with great foresight, passed a law protecting all other chacras from further divisions.

4. Feria Artesenal 

Later that week we walked through the weekly fair in the central plaza. The artisans had spent the week tending their chacras and studios in the rural outskirts of town. Now, gathered again for the weekend, they had a chance not only to sell their wares, but to catch up with one another. It was a celebration. There were woodcarvers, leatherworkers, and knife-makers. Artisans knitting sweaters and ponchos, making candles and jewelry. Homemade bread, jellies, fresh fruit, and microbrew. There were jugglers, musicians, kids playing soccer, and travelers from around the world, resting beside their huge packs.

5. The poor barrio

Eventually we found the poor barrio. Alongside the Rio Quemquemtreu, each plot of land was jammed with outbuildings and additions. The projects—brick walls, ridge-beams, and rafters—were left in various states of completion, or simply abandoned. But unlike other poor barrios in Argentina, especially in Buenos Aires, something productive was going on, if only for the fertility of the land itself and a connection to the land that had never been lost. There was always room some kind of enterprise: a woodshop, poultry yard, bakery, or a few rows of corn. There was no hunger, no crime, no danger in walking the streets. Their barrios were still free, belonging to them, unlike their rich compatriots in Buenos Aires, who lived within the walls of their mansions.

5. First planting

Before leaving El Bolsón we visited the plot one last time, digging a few holes. The soil was black and rich, and turned easily. We planted handfuls of apple seeds, hickory nuts, and a few saplings—white oak and tulip poplar—reminders of home, dreams taking root.