Neuquen (where?), Argentina, February 13-18

From Bariloche, we were prepared to fly way north and then all the way to the east coast of the country for the bright lights of Buenos Aires!  But.. We looked over all that expanse of Argentina we would be flying over.. Not seeing..  Cordoba, the country’s second most populous city, nightlife, vibrant cultural scene!  Mendoza, the wine capital of the country, endless tasting opportunities!  Rosario, birthplace of Che Guervara and Lionel Messi!  Hmm, nope, what caught our eye was.. Neuquen!   Yes, it surely does not show up on “top lists”… But! It is a great dino-site. You see, a whole lot of dinosaur fossils have been found in Argentina and Neuquen is the closest city to TWO whole dino museums!  So, we watched an interesting dino nature show about Titanosaurus (Patagotitan mayorum) which is the largest terrestrial animal that we know about.  

We traveled by bus from Bariloche on the last day of Carnival; Neuquen is a bigger city ~ 450,000 people than Bariloche so, bigger Carnival party.  We arrived at the bus station, took two taxis over to the apartment and then rallied the kids to walk to the town center.  We gathered that there were free buses to the Carnival site and followed the crowd onto the bus.  A woman I was squished on the bus near struck up a conversation with me (people often ask if Alex and Luke are twins, great convo starter).  She didn’t speak English, but I gathered that she was sort of asking - why are you visiting Neuquen? We talked about dino museums.  This was the first of several conversations I had with people asking: Why are you here?  

The Carnival celebration was great! It was like how I imagine very cool, European summer concert festivals - Neuquen was hot and dry so the night was warm, the buses took us to this sort of man-made island, the crowds funneled along and we stopped  at a group of food trucks and ate a bit, hearing the music from the far off stage; we checked out the signage (festival was called Confluencia, Neuquen is this little green space at the confluence of the Rio Neuquen and Rio Limay, looks very interesting from high up, it’s dry dry scrub and then these two green lines that meet up, forming the northern boundary of Patagonia) we wandered closer and saw that the concert was free for ~90% of the acreage, there was a ticketed space close to the stage, but everyone else could see the tiny performer maybe 200 yards away but could just watch their big face on the giant screens that was placed all over the grounds.  We swayed and enjoyed the music… for about two songs before our sweet little sweeties (mostly Alex) were saying, “How much longer do we have to stand heeeerrrre? I hate staaaaanding up…”  So, we went home soon after.

Luke + Neuquenians enjoying the Carnival outdoor concert. 

Carnival concert.

We scheduled our hour-long drives to each museum around school calls and hit the road. First museum, in a very small town - Museo Municipal Ernesto Bachmann, where we saw fossils of the largest known carnivore, Gigantosaurus carolinii (bigger than T-rex), 100 million years old, 13-meters long and +8 tonnes. Then we popped down to the lovely lakeshore to see large, dinosaur footprints (sorta hard to see though); we enjoyed cooling off in the lake and cracking rocks to try to find our own fossils (no dice).   We stopped at the only restaurant around that we could find, run by a lovely couple who’s baby was in the bassinet at the counter; we ordered pizza and some sandwiches. They brought us a tic tac toe game with stones. We played, blindfolded, both players verbalizing their moves and having to keep the picture of the board in your head, a fun way to play.  And we waited. And waited.. Not kidding, we waited maybe 70 minutes, we are pretty sure someone brought them the bread, eggs, and meat from Neuquen, an hour away, then our food came!  Side benefit of the wait, it was dark by the time we got back in the car to drive home, so we stopped along the road to check out the stars in relatively dark place.

In front of Giagantosaurus Carolini,  Scary! 

Playing paleontologist, Scott + Alex. 

Dino footprints! 

See, there are the giant footprints. 

Scott still searching on his own.

Cooling down at the lake near the footprints. 

Crushing rocks and searching for fossils. 

At the restaurant, during out +1 hour wait for sandwhiches+pizza. All was forgiven though as the proprietors kept their little baby in the background-buggy around as entertainment.

Next museum, Museo Municipal Carmen - A few miles from the museo, in 1989, a farmer discovered fossils of Argentinosaurus, the largest known dinosaur at the time (later, slightly overtaken in size by Titanosaurus).  This museum had some small outer rooms and then got right down to business with the incredible recreation of the Argentinosaurus skeleton.  What continues to hit me, that never hit me as much as a kid, learning about dinosaurs, is: They are so big. Why are they so big? Why did they evolve to be just so so huge, why was that good for survival? Really interesting to just spend minutes just walking around underneath that thing.

The belle of the museum, this Argentinosaurus skeleton, Scott is about half the height of its knee. 

So huge. 

More huge Argentinosaurus, with the predator Gigantosaurus in the background.

Katie with cute hat, unperturbed by the meat-eater in the background.  

Two other fun and notable Neuquen items we did: We headed back to the Confluencia and, following the other, got into the river next to the sign that says “No Nadar” (no swimming) and let ourselves be floated down the (pretty shallow river, don’t worry any family members!)  a ways and then swam to shore and ran back and did it again.  I did not want to do this, but did it for my sweet children who wanted to do it  (like riding horses, like skiing, like riding scary roller coasters) and UNLIKE all those other things, it was so fun, I really enjoyed it and appreciated my kiddos pushing me to do activities that are not initially attractive to me.  We also had some yummy drinks in Neuquen (it was hot, cocktails in Argentina are “cheap” by Bay Area standards, like, $5) so I mojito’ed  it up in that town!  And we passed many many tributes to the fallen from the Islas Malvinas war (aka Falklands); I do not remember such memorials when we were in the UK. Understandably, that war is still a big deal in Argentina.  Last observation, Jose de San Martin is Argentina's national hero, the liberator of Argentina, gaining independence from Spain in 1816. I have read that tributes to him are in most cities in the country, but I did not see any in El Calafate or Bariloche. So, in Neuquen is where I first noticed San Martin monuments and Las Malvinas tributes.

Now, with those dino museums under our belt, we were ready to head to BA, Buenos Aires! 

 

Preparing for the river float, very fun. 

This quick hike shows the scrubland and then that green line down below, where the river is.

Hiking! I am not sure what Alex is doing on the right.. 

Luke, cover model. 

Appreciating the Jose de San Martin the Liberator statue. 

Last day walk in Neuquen; hard to see, but the sign above Scott's head says "Paseo Heros de Malvinas", the first of the many Malvinas signs we began to see in Argentina.