Claudio Andrade
07/05/2020 - 16:29
- Clarín.com
- Society
“It was the best of times and it was the worst of times; the age of wisdom and also of madness; the age of belief and disbelief; the age of light and darkness; the spring of hope and the winter of despair ”.
The paragraph is part of the masterful work of Charles Dickens, "History of two cities", and may well reflect the crisis and anxiety that go through San Carlos de Bariloche . The tourist city par excellence begins to experience what should be the most important season of the year, with heavy snow and cold weather, ideal conditions for skiing and family games, although without tourists due to the coronavirus pandemic. A huge zero .
This is the number that obsessively keep in their minds the more than 5,000 companies and micro-businesses enabled in the town. 50% are businesses that maintain a direct link with tourism. From the record of flights in 2019, 41 per day, to none in this solitary and pandemic July. Of the nearly 50 thousand beds occupied per day (adding registered and informal) to the irreducible current vacuum. Of the 15 thousand tourists in the Cathedral skiing every morning and afternoon, to a desolate and white town . Of the 10,000 million pesos that were projected for global turnover to a figure set at hundreds of millions in negative as a result of the payment of fixed expenses for the local business community. It is estimated that some 45,000 workers in the sector will see their income reduced to nothing . An abysmal figure if you think that Bariloche has about 140 thousand inhabitants.
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Bariloche with a lot of snow but without tourists due to the covid-19
On June 30, the Río Negro Legislature declared Bariloche and the entire Cordillera area "Economic and Social Disaster Zone" , in an attempt to bring relief to the business community through measures of tax deferral and delivery of funds .
Empty. The view of the civic center of Bariloche, without tourists due to the coronavirus pandemic. (AFP)
" Bariloche lives of the tourism and now is when you 're seeing the lack of that power, that energy , " says Clarin Ricardo Lowther, owner and creator of the Lowther beer is marketed throughout the Cordillera. Lowther planned to open a brewery in April in Dina Huapi (a town attached to Bariloche) for the winter, as it arrived with a production capacity of 80,000 liters per month. The crowning achievement of his life had to be suspended due to the pandemic. The canyons are now targeting summer.
“After the initial impact, we managed to overcome the situation with the take away and the growlers , now we are working at 30% . The 6 bar employees are not working and take turns serving these requests. The other 6 of production continue with the activity. What I could reduce in my private life I did: rents, superficial expenses, DirecTV. You have to adapt. Profitability also decreased, the 25-kilo malt bag at the beginning of the pandemic was 1,100 pesos and today it costs 1,600 pesos, ”he details.
A panoramic view point of the empty Nahuel Huapi lake due to the coronavirus pandemic. (AFP)
Lowther misses the epic moments on Calle Juramento in the center of Bariloche when a crowd filled the sidewalks with his pint in hand. “We had to suspend the opening of the plant, although personally I am optimistic, I pay the salaries and not under my arms. We continue to sell about 2,500 liters per week in Esquel, which is the only city in the Cordillera that has its bars open, ”he adds.
The emblematic Miter de Bariloche street is nourished by 350 shops in 8 blocks. Restaurants , bars, ice cream parlors, breweries, the main chocolate shops, gyms and offices are crowded in the sector . A microworld within the city. In the middle of the winter season, no less than 30 thousand visitors walk up and down the commercial artery par excellence to finally end at the historic Civic Center that offers a panoramic view of Lake Nahuel Huapi.
Ricardo Lowther, owner and creator of Lowther beer.
For 100 days, its circulation has become null . A strange postcard shows a proactive employee sweeping a sidewalk and little else. More than 2,000 people work in this tight space that is fully dedicated to the interests of the tourist if employees, promoters and “little trees” are taken into account, among others.
"I have mixed feelings. We live a bit like puppets because today they tell us you can go out, not today, not with your ID today, not tomorrow. Today with a bicycle, tomorrow not. At the same time that in some people there is militancy due to the pandemic, if they see you on the street they take pictures of you. That hurts me and it hurts me that there are first and second class citizens . The first class are those who can stay at home, who have the means to do so, and the second class are those who do or do have to work. So quarantine is not the same for everyone, "reflects the writer Emilio Di Tata Roitberg, author of one of the best-selling books in Bariloche" El Oso ".
The writer Emilio Di Tata Roitberg, in a photo taken in 2014 in Bariloche. (Trilce Reyes / File)
Since modern tourism made its appearance in the Cordillera in the 1950s, Bariloche has become a center of international attraction. Between the late 1980s and 1990s, the city lived through times when it was visited by 1 million people annually. A figure that the crisis of 2001, that of 2007 and that caused by the ashes of the Puyehue volcano in 2011 were reducing to about 700 thousand. That year only 5,000 Brazilians rested in the south. This year 60 thousand were expected.
The last two seasons, protected by air connectivity and the boom in low-cost passages, began to set new records for tourists. It is estimated that last year almost 300 thousand arrived between July and September to enjoy the snow. The average expenditure per visitor per day reached 5,000 pesos. The calculation of losses for the winter is overwhelming. Market sources stipulate it at 10,000 million pesos base . And it could be much more.
“As a refugee I have the possibility of going to and from the city to the mountains to do things on site. So when I get to that incredible landscape, to that paradise, I say how crazy right? Paradise without people is not the same. You cannot enjoy it in the same way ”, explains Mariano Sebesta, concessionaire of the Agostino Rocca refuge, built by the Club Andino Bariloche, and one of the most popular spaces for those who love hiking in the mountains.
“In the mountains, one seeks solitude, but one also seeks everyone else. That communion. Now there is nobody . This emptiness of the city is a very strong shock for those who work on this, not only for the money but because working in tourism is also a lifestyle. Now they are locked up. As the days go by, that personal crisis will become evident, the people who lose their income and their customs, "says Sebesta.
The star products of each winter are beer, which produces around 7 million liters per year. There are more than 50 craft producers in the city; chocolate with more than 1,000 tons per year and ice cream that delivers about 1,500 tons in the same period. Between July and September about 50% of this production is marketed among the 300 to 400 thousand tourists that arrive in the season.
“We are selling 25 percent of what is sold on a good day. We started selling a month and a half ago by delivery and take away to maintain ourselves and not lose positions basically ", explains Melchor Mazzini, owner of Jauja ice creams, another of the classics of the Cordillera. “We have started to convert and we are selling ice cream pots to use other distribution chains. We have to wait and get ahead ”, explains Mazzini.
With 50 employees, 130 tons per year and branches in different points of Bariloche and El Bolsón, Jauja is one of the reference brands in the Cordillera with a rich founding history behind it. Melchor's parents, creators of the ice cream parlor, made an extensive youth tour that included participating in the French May to finally settle in El Bolsón during the democratic opening in the country. "At El Bolsón we also reinvent ourselves and offer pastry products," says Mazzini.
Bariloche has withdrawn into itself and the beautiful natural spaces that surround it remain practically empty of its people except for the neighbors who take advantage of authorized recreational moments.
With more than 50 active cases, the town begins to show signs of an improvement in the levels of contagion. From July 1st the runners were able to return to sports practice. Bariloche is characterized by hosting numerous teams that compete in endurance tests through the mountains, an activity that involves hard training in the natural spaces themselves. Until a few days ago, and for three months, they had to stay away from the trails.
Next Tuesday the restaurants will be able to join the flexibility and open their doors under strict sanitary security measures.
"At this time I was working full-time, now I have everything stopped," says José "Cachito" Lepio, a multi-band man in the city, who has a car rental shop, a restaurant in Villa Catedral (Refugio Encuentro) and one in full Centro (Rock Chicken) and is also a member and spokesperson for Red Solidaria Bariloche, the organization that brings food and helps the neediest neighborhoods.
View of the base of Cerro Catedral, snowy, but without tourists due to the coronavirus pandemic. (AFP)
"In the Cathedral there is no activity, but in the center we reach 10 sales per day when to stay we need 25", he details. “In Bariloche, if you don't have tourism you don't have anything and until this goes down on its own or they find a vaccine it won't change much. So you have to reinvent yourself. I'm already thinking about other businesses so that I don't depend only on tourism, ”he says.
From July to September, Villa Catedral becomes a parallel city. There are days with more than 20 thousand visitors touring its streets and tracks. In 2019, a total of 450 thousand people visited the villa at the coldest time of the year. In total there were 102 days of skiing. Some 2,000 people work fully in the villa in winter.
In 2020 , 90% of its stores will not open its doors , according to sector data. Losses would exceed 2,000 million pesos. Some 600 instructors will have little or no activity.
"If Buenos Aires does not open here there will be nothing. The instructors do not make a penny if there is no skiing, " says Víctor Katz, president of the Civil Association of Professionals of Independent Ski and Snowboard Education. Katz is one of the benchmarks in the sector and a widely praised guide on the networks.
The athlete prefers to be cautious when analyzing the possibilities of skiing this year at Catedral. "The information we have is little. On the hill there are working means and signs of reactivation, but tourists need to arrive and for now everything is closed. There has been talk of mid-July, mid-August. By now I don't know, it's confusing, "he adds.
"The instructor is a guy who works from Monday to Monday, without rest and to earn the mango he works every day that he can of the season. Working 60 days full time is the normal of a total of 100 days because several are lost due to climate, "he explains. Katz and hundreds of other skiers depend directly on the season to bring money home. "Skiing is not a contact sport and people are totally covered by themselves," he says.
Between 45,000 and 50,000 people live in Alto de Bariloche, where the most humble neighborhoods are concentrated. It is the B side of a postcard city. Dirt streets, precarious houses and chronic unemployment.
The dependence of its inhabitants on tourism is often indirect, but there are entire families that need “changas” to multiply in hotels, inns, and restaurants. As the weeks went by, the families “settled down”, they count in the neighborhoods. However the general concern is growing. "We are used to surviving and grooming ourselves," says a neighbor in the Frutilllar neighborhood.
At the beginning of the quarantine, the municipality delivered 1,800 food modules in Alto, currently reaching 18,000 modules . The expense is around 22 million pesos monthly on this item. Another 10 million pesos a month are spent on social programs and another 11 million were used in the purchase and distribution of 9 thousand meters of firewood . In the face of a winter without a job, aid, supported by funds from the city itself, will continue to work, officials say.
Bariloche is resigned to a winter that probably will not be. The idea of the municipality and the province of "perhaps" activating regional tourism under protocol appears as a lukewarm measure that will not solve the underlying drama. "Without planes there is no season," says an important voice in the sector. In 2019 more than 240 thousand people arrived in the city through this means.
From Cerro Catedral they have reported that the tracks, machines and human equipment are available. The production of beer, ice cream and chocolate has not stopped. To make matters worse, this promises to be a winter with abundant snow. The natural scenery remains intact.
Barilochenses go back to June 4, 2011 to find a similar catastrophe. "The inhabitants of this city are athletes of crisis. We have trouble training. We survived the ashes, the Tequila effect and I don't know what else. Now we have to move forward with the pandemic, ”says Alejandra Franco, interior decorator and entrepreneur. Franco confirms that after two months of almost total inactivity, the work has been slowly recovering in the works and in its area of design. "We are slowly going back, but we are working," says optimistically.
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