Deviation Actions
Literature Text
Hi! Today I’ll be showing you the town where I live: San Martín de los Andes.
San Martín de los Andes is a city in the province of Neuquén, Argentina. It is located in the Lácar Department in the south-west of the province, at the foot of the Andes, the longest continental mountain range in the world.
It’s on the east coast of the Lácar Lake, and is a touristic location very important on the province.
San Martín de los Andes, modeled like a European style alpine village, was founded on 4 February 1898 (eighteen ninety-eight) by Colonel Celestino Pérez, under the orders of General Rudecindo Roca, with the main purpose of setting sovereignty over the region.
Following the founding the main economic activities were wood logging and husbandry.
A major change in settlement life came when in 1937 (nineteen thirty-seven) Lanín National Park was created. This meant that wood logging was gradually reduced and numerous small settlements along the lake shore disappeared. New roads were built effectively connecting San Martín with the rest of Argentina. This led to an increased trade that almost ended local husbandry and agriculture. In the 1970s (nineteen seventies) with the help of bank credits many tourism enterprises were established in San Martín making the town up to this day an important tourism center, especially during winter when the ski pistes are open.
The first settlers built their houses with wood because that is the main raw material there.
Today, with more than a hundred years of life, the town keeps preserving some aspects of its appearance of traditional Andean town, where its inhabitants have cooperated to reach harmony on its urban development, using for its architecture characteristic materials such as stone and wood, that give that image of Andean village that San Martín de los Andes still has.
