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Guide to Patagonia's Monsters & Mysterious beings

I have written a book on this intriguing subject which has just been published.
In this blog I will post excerpts and other interesting texts on this fascinating subject.

Austin Whittall


Thursday, December 17, 2009

Lake Yelcho "cuervo" (or is it "cuero"?)

 

lake Yelcho

Lake Yelcho. From [2].


Today, I came across an interesting article about kayaking in the Patagonian Andes.[1] In it they mention a lake creature that I had not heard about before: "el Cuervo".

This lake, is located in Chile, 46 km (29 mi.) south of the town of Chaitén, and is fed by the Futaleufú River, whose sources are in the Los Alerces National Park in Argentina. It has a surface area of 116 km2 (44 sq. mi.) and is set at a very low altitude (70 m - 230 ft.); it flows into the Pacific Ocean through the Yelcho River.

It is surrounded by several volcanos (Corcovado and Nevado).

Map lake Yelcho

Map showing Lake Yelcho (center-right).


The creature is described in the article as follows:

Cuervo is the leather-backed monster that has long been rumored to dwell in Lago Yelcho. For generations, campesinos have warned their children not to venture near the lake at night.[1]

I had never before heard about this creature, and I am inclined to believe that it is a misspelling of the word "cuero" - the "lake hide" (see my post on it Here). Somehow a letter "v" found its way into the word "cuero" and the outcome has been another word "Cuervo".

Cuervo means crow or raven in Spanish. There are no crows in Patagonia (or in South America), they only live in the Northern Hemisphere.

However we have posted (Here) on a cuero and other strange lake creatures found upstream along the Futaleufú river, at Lake Rosario in Argentina (it is just beyond the right edge of the map above).

Bibliography.

[1] Canoe & Kayak. Kayaks across the Andes
[2] Wikipedia. By Develp. Under a Creative commons Share Alike 3.0 license


Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

2 comments:

  1. I know I'm... 5 years late to reply, but yes, that's most definitely a misspelling. Most probably someone didn't notice when it was corrected, as the description fits to a T to what the Cuero is thought of as a mythical creature. Greetings from Chile! I really loved your work in this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for your comment Felipe!

    ReplyDelete

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