Searching for a Retirement Home in Argentina

For big-city people there is no place in Argentina like Buenos Aires. It is a world-class city with gracious, congenial people.  Buenos Aires offers something for everyone.
But supposing you are just not the big-city type. And supposing you like four seasons and a more bucolic environment. Come along with me to Patagonia and we will visit Viedma, 960 kilometers south of Buenos Aires, in the Rio Negro province.
Viedma is a down-home kind of town that stretches along the shore of the Rio Negro River.  It has a population of about 50,000 and is directly across the river from Carmen de Patagones, a quaint, older village of 20,000.  Altogether the two towns make up a  population of around 70,000 people. A concrete seawall, sidewalk and a tree-shaded public park run along the length of the Viedma side of the river as it flows between the sister cities. Families gather in the park on weekends to visit with friends, fish, kayak, swim, or cook out.
The largest kayak race in the world is held annually in Viedma with contestants coming from all over the globe. Viedma is the home of the Universidad Nacional de Rio Negro offering 25 undergraduate courses and one post-graduate course. Viedma is the capitol of the Rio Negro Province. Therefore, although the main product of the area is agriculture, it is largely an administrative city.
The beach and the Atlantic Ocean are 30 kilometers away. A colony of sea lions, called in Spanish, lobo del mar–literally translated sea wolf–has a permanent settlement nearby. The orca (killer whale) comes occasionally to dine. Sad to me! I am rooting for the lobos!
In this part of the world, penguins and parrots share the same terrain.

This is an area where a variety of fruits and vegetables is readily available, though the major product of the area is cattle.  During our visit to Viedma, we paused in the shade of a heavily bearing almond tree in a public access area where we shelled and ate almonds right from the tree. We also noticed several bearing lemon trees in the courtyard where we stayed.  Avocado trees grow here as well.

 

There is another interesting crop here.

 

During our stay in Viedma, we met a farmer who invited us for a private visit to his farm. He proudly raises a sizable herd of European red stags. He markets the venison locally, exports the velvet from the antlers to Europe as an aphrodisiac, and sells the big-rack stags to hunting lodges.

The further south you go in Argentina, of course, the closer you are to Antarctica.  That’s why we were surprised to see citrus trees grow this far south. One of the most surprising qualities of South America is that it does not seem to have the intensely cold winters that some of us have experienced in the United States, particularly those of us who hail from the far reaches of the north–specifically Montana. You can run into rather severe weather if you go as far south as the southern tip of the country. Viedma, this far south, does have winter, and it does snow on occasion. But remember those amazing lemon trees growing in the courtyards and the sour oranges on the street right-of-way.

What we noticed most in Viedma was the warmth and friendliness of the people. It appears that if you even look like a potential friend you get the “friend” treatment. But we do find the Argentina people to be a warm and friendly group.

There is something else about Viedma that we like. During the winter you can get on the train or a bus and make an overnight trip to Bariloche, a top Argentina ski resort to the west, for a weekend of downhill skiing. One of these days we need to take a trip to Bariloche. I think you’ll like it.

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