Chilecito

Chilecito lies in the Antinaco-Los Colorados valley, with the Sierra de Velasco to the east and the Sierra de Famatina to the west. It was founded on 19 February 1715 by Domingo de Castro y Bazán as Villa Santa Rita and boomed at the end of the nineteenth century on the gold of Famatina. The symbol of that boom is the cable car to the La Mejicana mine, built by the German firm Adolf Bleichert & Co., opened on 1 January 1905 and now a national historic monument: eight sections and nine stations, each driven by wood-fired steam engines, moved 450 wagons along 35,128 metres of line with a height difference of 3,510 metres, on 262 towers up to 50 metres tall. The rust-orange Station 1 stands on the RN40 at the southern entrance to the town. Around Chilecito an irrigated oasis grows vines and olives for wine and oil, and the Tamberías del Inca nearby are the ruins of an Inca complex that may have overseen the mining.

Background

Chilecito, Little Chile, is a city of La Rioja province, set in a valley between the Sierras de Famatina on the west and the Sierras de Velazco on the east; Spanish settlers founded it in 1715. It keeps the cable car of the La Mejicana mine, built by Bleichert, a relic of the mining boom that peaked at the end of the 19th century, and by some accounts its name comes from the many Chilean miners, the pirquineros, who came to work the Famatina gold fields. An irrigated oasis around it is given over mostly to vineyards, and the educator Joaquín V. González, who grew up nearby, left his house Samay Huasi to the University of La Plata as an artists' retreat. The 2022 census counted 58,798 inhabitants.

Source: Wikipedia, "Chilecito"

Highlights

• The Cablecarril stations - nine of them, up to La Mejicana at about 4,600 metres.
• The Sierra de Famatina - the range on the western side of the valley.
• Vineyards and olive groves - the irrigated oasis around the town.
• Samay Huasi - Joaquín V. González's retreat, now a museum of natural science and mining.

When to go

April to November. One to two days.

Things to know

Cars can follow the cable car only between stations 1 and 3; beyond that the route goes by 4x4, mule, horse or mountain bike, or on foot, up to La Mejicana at about 4,600 metres.

Nearby

The Cuesta de Miranda, a 10-kilometre mountain road between deep ochre-red slopes, rises to the El Bordo Atravesado viewpoint at 2,020 metres; Santa Florentina, 7 km from Chilecito, kept the smelter that started work in 1907.

Key facts