Argentina

Cholila

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Butch Cassidy's cabin still stands in a valley where gauchos outnumber tourists.

#Mountain#Solo#Couple#Friends#Relaxed#Wandering#Eco#Historic

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid arrived in Cholila in Chubut Province in 1901, fleeing Pinkerton agents, and built a log cabin on a homestead overlooking the Lago Cholila that still stands — a two-room structure now used as a storage building on a private estancia, with a neighbour who will point it out if asked nicely. The valley itself, ringed by the Andes and populated by estancias that have been working the same land since the Welsh settlers arrived in the 1880s, looks exactly as it did when two of the most famous outlaws in American history decided it was remote enough to start over.

Cholila is a small town in the Andean foothills of Chubut Province at the edge of Los Alerces National Park, known primarily as the location where Robert LeRoy Parker (Butch Cassidy) and Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid) established a ranch from 1901 to 1905, supported in part by correspondence with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency — which was simultaneously tracking them — and by their local reputation as honest ranchers. The cabin they built is a private property viewable from the road, and its existence has been verified by the Butch Cassidy biographer Larry Pointer through correspondence between Parker and his family from the Cholila period. The surrounding valley — the Cholila Valley — is a landscape of glacial lakes, lenga beech forest, and working estancias that stretches south to the Los Alerces park boundary and north toward the Esquel road. The annual local rodeo in January is one of the most authentic in the Andean foothills.

42.509° S · 71.633° W

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Best For

Solo

Cholila rewards the traveller who reads the history before arriving — the cabin, the valley, and the neighbouring estancia families are legible in a way they can't be without the context of two American outlaws who found what they were looking for and then had to leave it. The drive from Esquel, through Los Alerces National Park, is a significant experience in its own right.

Couple

Cholila's combination of one specific historical curiosity (the cabin), one extraordinary national park (Los Alerces), and one valley that has been essentially unchanged for a century makes it the correct place to stop when driving the Andean lake district between Bariloche and Esquel.

Friends

The outlaw mythology of Cholila is a starter for the larger Patagonian conversation — the landscape of early-twentieth-century settlement, the unchanged estancia culture, and the fact that Butch Cassidy found it sufficiently remote to disappear into are all connected. A group that explores the valley by bicycle or horseback from the village finds both history and landscape.

Why This Place

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid lived and ranched at Cholila from 1901 to 1905 — their log cabin still stands 12km from the village.
The cabin is a genuine working-ranch structure, not a reconstruction — original timber walls and hand-hewn wood remain.
The valley runs on dirt roads, grazing horses, and working gauchos — tourists are genuinely outnumbered.
Lago Cholila, visible from the cabin, was described by Cassidy in letters to friends as the most beautiful place he'd ever seen.

What to Eat

Patagonian lamb roasted whole over open coals at roadside parrillas along Ruta 71.

Wild trout pulled from Lago Cholila and pan-fried with garlic and lemon at lakeside cabañas.

Best Time to Visit

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