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Veranador Festival See map

In the town of Andacollo it is held from 1994 during the month of January, the Veranador Festival as a tribute to the criancero from the North of Neuquén and to the transhumance in summer to recover, in this way, the traditions of the peoples of Patagonia. 

Andacollo dresses up to welcome tourists in the area and abroad.

Andacollo is north of the Minas Department in the province of Neuquén. This area began to exploit the mining but with the passage of time it took hold in agriculture and livestock.

Its history is suffused with stories that can be counted in relation to transhumance that each year is done by men and women in the field.

Transhumance

Transhumance is a practice that is done for many years in the area, in which men take their animals to areas close to the mountain range, that thanks to its green pastures serve as a field of fattening farms.

The Veranadas are the places that allow the craincero to leave his animals to stop grazing in the high mountains during the summer. This help the growth of all animals, being there that the criancero from late morning start his daily work in the field caring for and monitoring of danger concerning his flock.

The displacement of entire families with their animals, adults and children, occurs in the month of November and runs until March.

Down of the Veranador

To rescue these rural traditions, is that a group of people brings together and emerges Gaucha Association "Down of the Veranador" to work together with neighbors, merchants and friends in order to "preserve the cultural identity, celebrate and strengthen the criancero activity, gaucho skills and all the field activity that helps to grow and learn about the cultural roots". 

The spirit of this group and the party that takes place every year is to promote the traditions, customs and festivals that make the native to counter the influence of foreign cultures. In this rescue of the quake are the typical foods, crafts, dances, cuecas and tunes  and something really important and hard to ignore: the rodeo skills, a true tribute to the man of the field.

The transhumance has become a tourism product and these days is part of ecotourism. In this, the veranadores offer a journey on horseback accompanying the activity, describing landscapes and animal herding. So the tourist has the opportunity to experience the customs and myths of one of the most traditional activities in the northern Neuquén.

In festivals you can not miss the rodeo, on them the people demonstrate their skills.

Las Cantoras

Those who also pay tribute to the field man from their arts are "Las Cantoras", a group of women that with ballads, romances, tenths and riddles are incorporated into regional music folk. 

The singers accompany the arrival of the couple by providing their "for woods", the evening of the saints, the wake of the angels, the señalada, the marking, the threshing cuecas, tunes and songs. At each festival the singers offered their skills and the party ends "when they kept in their heart and their guitar the tradition, culture and feelings of a people that through these simple woman grows up in tradition and truth". 

The Veranador festival has many activities, including folk performances highlighting local and regional artists, the dance group and various rock bands. As the gaucho parade, the rodeo and everyone's attention in native skills:

• Surly Sheep Riding
• Pial mounted on the outside door
• Colts Riding
• Surly Cow Milking
• Special Montas