Around the World in 8000 days: The old mining town of Chilecito

Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Sunday, May 14, 2017

The old mining town of Chilecito

Cable Car (Mining) Museum, Chilecito

After La Rioja, we got a bus to Chilecito, where we had a nice little cabana to stay in. Aside from the ridiculously long 1pm to 6pm siesta when pretty much all shops and restaurants are closed, we rather liked Chilecito.

It is only a small town, but it has a warm and welcoming feel to it. It doesn't have the nice restaurants that La Rioja did, and in truth, there isn't much here, but it just felt like a good place to spend a few relaxing days. It also helped that there were plenty of little shops where we could buy decent meats, fruit and veg to make our healthy meals.

In general, we don't go to all that many museums on our travels, but as they were about the only thing open during the siesta period, we popped along to the Museum of Chilecito, which is in the old San Fransisco Mill.

San Fransisco Mill, Chilecito

It's only a small place, and there isn't much information about the exhibits, but it had a few interesting elements.

The collection of artefacts from Chilecito's past, ranges from old burial pots and other wares belonging to the indigenous people of the region, to old typewriters presumably brought by the colonialists, and even a Commodore 64 computer.

We were a little surprised that there wasn't really anything on the mill itself, but it was decent enough to have a look around.

Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Chilecito

With our diets in mind, we bravely resisted a visit to the nearby Riojana winery, but did pop along to see the interesting 1960s Sacred Heart Church, and the 16m high Cristo del Portezuelo, which had unusual, but attractive looking cactus terraces leading up to it.

We also visited the Cable car museum. Chilecito was a mining town. The Sierra democratic Famatina was a rich source of minerals. The name Famatina means 'mother of metals', and it's bounty includes gold, silver, iron, copper and uranium.

It is likely that the indigenous people mined here, and the Argentines mined here in the 19th century. Indeed it was from this time that the town got its name; it began life as Santa Rita de Casia, but because so many of the miners originated from neighbouring Chile, it was nicknamed Little Chile, or Chilecito, and the name eventually became official.

Cable Car (Mining) Museum, Chilecito

The mining rights were then given to the UK, in repayment of the money that it gave to Argentina, to help fund the wars that had been fought to bring about the unification of the different parts of the country.

The British wanted to improve the process, and so appointed a German company, Bleichart & Co, to build a cable car to transport the output down to the town.

Cable Car (Mining) Museum, Chilecito

The Cable Carril was completed in 1903, and at just under 40km, was the second longest in the world. There were 262 towers, nine stations, and it rose from just over 1000m above sea level at Station 1, on the outskirts of the town, to 4,500m at Station 9.

The mine was operated by the British until WWI, and then mining continued under other companies until 1926. There was an attempt to reopen it a while ago, but locals revisited due to the damage that it would cause to the town's irrigation systems.

Football Pitch at the Cable Car (Mining) Museum, Chilecito

The museum at Station 1 is pretty basic. The proper guide wasn't there when we went, so it may be better if he is around, but as it was, the information was quite sparse. However it was quite interesting just to look around the station itself, with its carts still hanging from the rails.

It amused us that some of the carts have been redeployed (officially or otherwise) to mark out a football pitch next to the station.

Cable Car (Mining) Museum, Chilecito

There is a further exhibition at Station 2, although we didn't go there. We had hoped to take a tour up to the last station, but unfortunately the rain has made the, already rough road, impassable.

We did take a couple of other tours out of town though, which I will cover in the next two posts.