Uruguay revives the gold rush with growing mining tourism

The illusion of putting yourself in the shoes of one of the miners who in the 19th century experienced the gold rush in the surroundings of mines Corrales, north of Uruguayis the true reward of the tourists that, more and more, come closer to an area as rich in stones as in history.

Usually described as a peneplain “gently wavy” Postcards of cows and sheep grazing in green meadows abound in the geography of Uruguay; However, in the department (province) of Rivera, to the northeast, a set of flat hills announces the wealth that lies below.

Gold Rush

It is that it is there where, as the owner of the Posada del Minero and in charge of the tour “the Gold Route” Edelweiss Oliver, around the 1820s, when present-day Uruguay was the Cisplatina Province -occupied by Portugal-, a man finds gold nuggets that he secretly keeps in a jar at home.

“One day they rob it and as a result of that robbery the ball begins to spread that there is gold there. The whole world begins to find out (…) and the gold rush begins to come. It begins to populate with adventurers, people who have nothing to lose in the place they are and decide to try their luck “Oliver narrates.

Explained to the visitors during the tour, the anecdote of the find begins a long history of gold mining that, details the local historian Selva Chirico, can be divided into several stages.

According to Chirico, the documents indicate that until 1850 there was an exploitation “primordial”, “closely linked to the inefficiency of those who do not know what they are doing” and then “artisans proliferate” and arises “a culture of craft tasting” in which “bat” in the creek to extract from the sand “little sprinkles” of gold.

Some 16 years later, he describes, a character appears “crucial”Clemente Barrial Posada, who employs 300 workers in the area of ​​the Corrales and Cuñapirú streams and gives the kick for the industrialization of mining that, with the help of the militarism that governed Uruguay, is consolidated when a group of French installs a plant.

The ruins of Cuñapirú

Strategically located in the waters of Cuñapirú –‘skinny woman’ in Guaraní-, in 1879 the Gauls ordered the construction of the Cuñapirú Dam, which, Oliver points out, was “the first hydroelectric dam in all of South America”.

Today, as part of the Gold Route, a tour allows you to see its ruins, which range from the area where the workers rested to the management house, which was once inhabited by the Marquis de Malherbe and which is accessed by a picturesque staircase. of stone.

“The French contributed something very important, which was administration and technology, which goes far beyond the famous dam, because, for example, they installed a railway that people called La Clotilde, which consisted of two locomotives powered by compressed air, which was a technology very fashionable in Paris”, explains the historian.

In the area of ​​the plant, to which stones arrive in a short period from the nearby San Gregorio mine in a 12-kilometre railway whose towers remain, modern machines can be seen, since the First World War marked the end of French activity and only in 1935 the National Administration of Power Plants and Electrical Transmissions (UTE) and current owner of the property resumed the activity for five years.

Chirico, who despite being retired still investigates history with a focus on the role of women, who, she says, also participated in mining, also highlights that in 1880 there was a strike planned by 200 Italian workers and repressed. “by force of (arms) Remington” by order of the French management but which was distinguished by its duration, of several months.

An incipient tourism

With an annual average number of visitors of around 6,000, Oliver points out that the Gold Route has more and more influx, especially Europeans who come from Germany, France and England or Brazilians, an audience that they aim for thanks to the launch of the joint promotion of Uruguay and Brazil “Binational Destination”.

The experiences, he says, are varied, since he offers a search for gold with a ‘garimpeiro’ or prospector, tasting regional wines or walking through the hills of an area that, he reveals, has been seeking to become a Unesco Geopark for some time, as the one that already exists in Grutas del Palacio (center).

“We can go underground, in the ancient underground galleries and really realize what it was like to work in there and how hard life must have been for the miners at that time, if we are lucky someone will tell us out there inside of whom we are not going to reveal (reveal) much ”, highlights.

However, he emphasizes that progress is slow, since it is only now in sight that the authorities can approve a project that would guarantee the safety of tourists when touring the area and the willingness to preserve the ruins and nature of the area seems more distant.

“There is (in Cuñapirú) a very large and very important colony of bats at the level of preservation and thus a lot of layers and stories. Conservation is a huge part of the tourism brings to these kinds of sites, makes them more than just a bunch of bricks”round.

Source: EFE