In 1920, the tourist village called Villa Epecuen standing along the edge of Lago Epecuen, a salt lake about 600 kilometers southwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lago Epecuen just like most other mountain lakes, except the one thing that makes it different. This lake has a very high salt content, the number two in the world after the Dead Sea, and ten times higher than any ocean.
As quoted from versesofuniverse.blogspot.com, Strength of Lago Epecuen therapy has been well known for centuries. Legend has it that the lake was formed by the tears of a tribal chief who was crying for the pain of her lover. It is said that Epecuen – or “eternal spring” – can cure depression, rheumatism, skin diseases, anemia, and even treat diabetes.
Soon, tourists from all over South America and the World came in droves, and in the 1960s, as many as 25,000 people come each year to soak in the soothing salt water. Epecuen population peaked in 1970 with more than 5,000 people and 300 types of businesses thrive there, including hotels, hostels, spas, shops, and museums.
Around the same time, there is the weather began to change, gradually giving much more rain than usual into the hills around Epecuen for many years, and Lago Epecuen began to swell. On November 10, 1985, a large volume of water broke through the dam and flooded most of the city below four meters of water. In 1993, floods are slowly submerge the city up to 10 meters under water.
Nearly 25 years later, in 2009, the weather turned back and the water began to recede. Villa Epecuen was slowly starting to come back to the surface.
Former slaughterhouse in Villa Epecuen, Argentina, among the trees long dead but still standing. photographed on May 4, 2011.
