Believe it or not, glocal economic crisis aside, plans are still a-go to build a massive new hotel out on the Circuito Chico, just west of Bariloche. The $125 million hotel, to be built by Portuguese developers IMOCOM, is slated to be run as a Hilton. It’s just one of a number of projects still underway to bring more giant hotel chains to our little slice of paradise.

Oh dear.

I’ve never been one to think that investment is straight-up good, or development a clear-cut positive. Growth ain’t no given to me. And so this has got me shivering in my bippies.

More hotel rooms usually means more tourists, which is a good thing for a place that depends so heavily on folks on vacation, right? But the whole Hilton thing has people here up in arms.

Just one quick look at the model ought to be enough to leave people shaking their heads (see above). See that building? It used to be a hill.
The plan, essentially, is to use dynamite to blow the lid off Cerro Dos Hermanos, a local hill between the Moreno and Nahuel Huapi lakes in the midst of pristine alpine wilderness and nestled between a national and a municipal park. Apparently tests have already begun on the dynamite use.
While marketers are claiming it will be an ‘eco-friendly’ Hilton, emphasizing the fact that it’ll blend into the horizon…. blowing up a hill isn’t earning developers any kudos from local ecologistas.

These eco-groups, however, have some credibility issues of their own. The main environmental groups in Bariloche tend to be split between those who really know and care about the earth, and those who are just plain pissed off at everybody about everything (and they then tend to be particularly pissed at foreigners with cash).

Complaining and rebel-rousing is mainstream business in this country - los piqueteros have turned it into a career. These tipos tend to be against anything they can find happening, and are seriously lacking in respectable arguments for their cases. They blow things out of proportion and raise hell at any opportunity. And for a serious issue like this Hilton, they are getting in the way of real analysis and constructive environmental requirements.

Still, no group of developers should be given permission to build such an atrocity, and locals are right to demand clarity in all stages of the development. It’s ugly and offensive (thank god it doesn’t include a golf course, though). The hill blow-up concept, frankly, is from the hillbilly days, which I thought we’d long learned our lesson from.

Of course, if the project has passed an enviromental assesment, it may be ‘understandable’. However, eco-assessments in this part of the world are a breath short of a joke, heavy on the coima (see below).

Anyone with the right amount of cash can build whatever they want here (note the ridiculously hideous Bariloche Center downtown). The local government can claim it’s promoting economic growth, but the only things that ends up really growing is the pocket books of a few. Left behind are ecological scars, and if my hunches are right, a giant white elephant that will ruin postcards for the rest of eternity.

This is what’s known as a coima, or a bribe, and it’s how most things get down here. Put that word in your Argentine dictionary folks!