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Los Arrayanes National Park
Topics: National parks of Argentina
Los Arrayanes National Park is a national park of Argentina with an area of 17.53 square kilometres. It covers the Quetrihue Peninsula on the shore of the Nahuel Huapi Lake in the province of Neuquen, 3 km from Villa la Angostura.
Even though arrayan trees (Luma apiculata) can be seen on the way to the end of the peninsula, the forest of 300 year old arrayanes covers 0.2 km² of the southern point, with individuals of over 600 years. The forest can be reached by boat from different points of the Nahuel Huapi lake, or a 12 km path from the beginning of the park at the port of Villa La Angostura. This path, full of ups and downs, is also popularly done by mountain bike.
There are a few pudu and huemul deer, guanacos, monitos de monte and small foxes. Among the birds, condors, eagles, hawks and woodpeckers can be found here.
Even though it was already part of the Nahuel Huapi National Park, Los Arrayanes was created in 1971 to protect its forest of rare arrayan trees. To protect the soil and the roots of these fragile trees, a wooden path has been made for the tourist to enjoy the view of the cinnamon-coloured trees. It is said that the forest inspired Walt Disney for the scenography of his film Bambi, though he visited it in 1941, when production of the film was already in course.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Los Arrayanes National Park