Esquel, Argentina

Esquel is a town in the north east of Chubut Province, Patagonia, Argentina. It is located in the Futaleufú department, of which it is the capital. The town’s name derives from a mapuche term meaning thorn, a name given to the town thanks to the characteristics of the local flora, which includes several spiny bushes, most famously the Calafate (Berberis buxifolia).

The founding of the town relates back to the arrival of Welsh immigrants in Chubut from 1865. The settlement was created on 25 February 1906, as an extension of the Colonia 16 de Octubre, now known as Trevelin.

The city, the main town of the area, is located by the Esquel stream and surrounded by the mountains La Zeta, La Cruz, Cerro 21 and La Hoya. La Hoya is known as a ski resort with good quality snow right through to Spring.

Another important tourist attraction is the narrow-guage train (with 70cm between the rails), known as ‘La Trochita’ locally and in English as ‘The Old Patagonian Express’ after the book by Paul Theroux. It is said to be the only narrow-guage long distance train in operation in the world and the southernmost railway. The engines were made in Scotland and Germany between 1920 and 1922 and originally used coal as fuel buy now have diesel motors. The trains now run between Esquel and the small settlement of Nahel Pan, located at the foot of the volcano of the same name. Until 1991, the train ran all the way to the city of Ingeniero Jacobazzi in Rio Negro Province, from where trains ran to Viedma and from there to Buenos Aires, forming the General Roca railway.

According to the 2001 official census, the Esquel district had 30,000 inhabitants, with one of the highest rates of growth in the province.

The townspeople have been in a long battle to prevent a gold mine being set up nearby, with concerns that the metal extraction will contaminate the watercourse permanently and irreversibly.