Cinco Saltos

Image Credit: hauntednorthamerica .org

Cinco Saltos – City of Witches

Cinco Saltos a city in the province of Rio Negro, Argentina, is situated towards the eastern side of the valley of the Neuquén River in the vicinity of the Pellegrini Lake around 20 kilometres from the northwest of Neuquén and 25 kilometres from Allen. According to the 2001 census, it had around 19,819 inhabitants. Cinco Saltos literally means Five Waterfalls and is referred to the five level steps of the canal which begins upstream at the Ingeniero Ballester Dam, and passes by the eastern limit of the city.

Cinco Saltos tends to have a black reputation. Located in the rural Rio Negro region, it is said to receive little sunlight and this pervasive gloom seems to hide the many necromancers and witches from inquisitive eyes. Actually, there are several black magicians in Cinco Saltos that the town is frequently referred as the `City of Witches’. Some of the shameful stories regarding Cinco Saltos concern the large cemetery of the town where one story claims that workers had found the body of a 12 year old girl while renovating the cemetery. Though she had been dead for around 70 years, the body of the girl had barely decomposed due to mummification.

Supernatural Activity in Cinco Saltos

Strangely still, the workers had also noticed that body of the girl had been chained to her coffin. On learning about the discovery, the superstitious inhabitants of Cinco Saltos claimed that the girl’s body had been used in some kind of occult ritual by the town’s several covens. Soon thereafter, some began seeing the ghost of the girl near the cemetery. Regarding the supernatural activity in Cinco Saltos, another disturbing story concerns a crossing which spans Pellegrini Lake that runs through the town.

 Witches had once perfumed child sacrifices on the lake and so visitors who tend to cross at night, at times have reported of hearing the ghostly screams of children. Whenever someone made attempts to locate the source of these screams, they would return back without any clue. The first settlers had come to this land in 1914 and the layout, at first of the town was made in the north area of the railroad. However in 1918, the floods had covered most of the area, which prevented further building.

Village Development Committee Formed – September 16, 1925

The Village Development Committee was formed on September 16, 1925. The city did not have health care, safe medical mobile during the early years and on January 3, 1960, it opened the local rural hospital in the presence of the then Governor Edgardo Castello. The growth of the city was enhanced with the development of the plant production of caustic soda, chlorine and vinyl chloride monomer.

The factory had developed the income of ordinary workers as well as professionals, aided the creation of the industrial School No 1 Dr Armando Novelli, Chemical orientation, but had caused pollution and though the company had filed for bankruptcy in 1992 and in 1995 had closed its doors resulting in huge depression in the city job and emigration workers in the city. The population seemed to increase in 2004, owing to the change in oil exploration and exploitation, using the professionals in the city and serving as a city of residence of the complex population Neuquén.