ABSTRACT
In May 2003, I visited for the first time the former geopolitical centre of a vast area of the Chaco frontier in northern Argentina, Piquete de Anta. The setting was beautiful: green hills stretched toward the Andes, and a river carved out a winding path strewn with rocks amid cliffs shrouded by forests. The ridges rising to the west were part of El Rey National Park, one of the areas of cloud rainforest in the province of Salta. In the east, hills rolled down towards the plains of the Gran Chaco. What attracted me to that place, however, was not the scenery. I had arrived there looking for the traces of that place’s disrupted history, for people all over the region had told me that Piquete de Anta was in ruins. The river, Río del Valle, marked the end of the dirt road I had been driving on for over twenty kilometres. I parked the car and waded across the shallow river to reach the beach on the other side, at the foot of steep slopes.
