Villa Unión

The Bermejo Valley was the land of Diaguita peoples, among them the Indians of Guandacol, who resisted the Spanish when they entered the valley around 1634. In 1636 Gerónimo Luis de Cabrera punished their resistance by expelling them to the slopes of the Famatina range, and many died on the way; the land was formally returned to them in 1650. A small settlement of Spanish colonists grew up early in the 17th century at Los Hornillos, named after the kilns on the banks of the Bermejo where people baked their bread.

Around 1750 three families from Chile settled at Guandacol, then moved to Los Hornillos, where local families gave them protection and land. That welcome is remembered in the town's name. When La Rioja was divided into departments in 1869, Guandacol was the head town and Los Hornillos one of its districts; on 9 September 1881 the department was renamed and Los Hornillos, renamed Villa Unión, became its capital.

An earthquake in 1854 had already left the original settlement in ruins and pushed it a little to the north, onto three long north–south streets. Through the 20th century Villa Unión stayed an agricultural town of vineyards and orchards. Tourism arrived with the protection of Talampaya, made a provincial reserve in 1975 and a national park in 1997, and the World Heritage listing it shares with Ischigualasto in 2000.

Villa Unión is a country town of the La Rioja highlands, where the year is set by the grape harvest and the Catholic calendar. The parish church of Nuestra Señora del Rosario stands on the plaza; the Virgin of the Rosary's feast falls on 7 October.

At Carnival the town holds the Festival del Peón Viñador, honouring the vineyard workers and the old way of making wine by treading grapes underfoot. The result, vino patero, is one of the products sold all over town alongside dried fruit and preserves. As elsewhere in western Argentina, folk music rather than tango fills local festivals, and evenings are spent outdoors around the plaza once the heat has gone.

Popular devotion also runs deep. In the town cemetery lies Miguel Ángel Gaitán, a mummified child who died in 1967 and is believed by many to perform miracles; his glass-lidded coffin is visited by people from across Argentina. The town's identity is also bound up with the parks: local people work as guides, drivers and hosts for the travellers who come to see the canyons.

Villa Unión had about 5,000 people at the 2010 census, and is the main town of the Coronel Felipe Varela Department. Agriculture remains the base of the economy: about half of it is grape growing, the grapes high in alcohol content thanks to the climate, with the rest given over to fruit, cereals and fodder. Livestock is kept only for local needs. The mountains around the valley have been mined for clay, barytes, talc, marble and other minerals.

Tourism has grown into the town's second pillar, with guesthouses, tour operators and taxis serving visitors to Talampaya and the other parks. The National University of La Rioja has a campus here. An international route to Copiapó in Chile, with a paved road and a tunnel across the Andes, has been under construction.

The day follows the climate: early starts, a long afternoon siesta behind closed shutters, and shops and the plaza busy again in the evening. Summer storms can bring floods that cut roads, and the zonda, a hot, dry wind full of dust, blows down from the Andes.

Food here is the plain, hearty cooking of La Rioja. Grilled meat, empanadas — the La Rioja kind made with hard-boiled egg, red pepper, olives and raisins — and roast chivito, young kid cooked over an open fire, are the standard dishes, and stews such as locro are typical of the region. Tomaticán, tomato cooked with egg, is typical of neighbouring Cuyo, and sopaipillas, fried dough, are made across Argentina.

The valley's own products are sold everywhere as productos regionales: dried fruits, fruit preserves and vino patero, the strong, rustic wine made by treading the grapes. Torrontés Riojano, the most common and most aromatic of Argentina's three Torrontés varieties, grows in the province and gives fragrant white wines.

Restaurants and cafés gather around the plaza and along the main avenue, serving grills, pizzas and sandwiches to visitors returning from the parks, and dinner starts late, as everywhere in Argentina. Local tables also offer roast chivito, homemade bread and wine, with the area's sweets and walnuts.