These photographs feature what was once a tourist town in Buenos Aires, Argentina called Villa Epecuen.
The town was established in the 1920s on the banks of a salt lake, and housed around 5,000 permanent citizens. They welcomed up to 20,000 tourists per season.
The town was particularly popular because the water in the lake was about 10 times saltier than the sea, so people, especially Jewish visitors, enjoyed doing the Dead Sea-esque floating on the surface thing.
Back in 1985, a dam and a dike burst due to some particularly wet winters and an over-zealous downpour.
This caused 33 feet of water to force its way through Villa Epecuen‘s booming little streets. Initially, people were happy to sit tight on their rooves and wait for it to trickle away. But it didn’t. So they abandoned the town.
The water began to recede in 2009 to reveal an ex-underwater world.
Amazingly, one resident remained in the now desolate Villa Epecuen throughout. Pablo Novak was the only person not to leave his hometown when the water swallowed it up in ’85.
He lives in a stone hut with a fridge and a basic cooker.
CANOEING ALONGSIDE LAVA STREAMS
