Search for the perfect cuppa

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Welsh nationalists, desperate to escape English domination in the nineteenth century, decided to pack up their national identity and sail to Argentinean Patagonia, a land so desolate that they hoped to live undisturbed. Despite a few initial hitches and some helpful intervention from natives tribes living in the area, many of the villages survived and from the moment I had crossed into Argentina, I had been eager to visit one. I travelled from the Atlantic coast down to Gaiman, where about a third of residents have some form of Welsh ancestry and which housed several of the famous Welsh teahouses which I had heard served hefty portions of scones, cheese sandwiches (with the corners cut off), apple cake, homemade jam and (most importantly) an endless pot of tea.

After the glitz and posing porteños of Pinamar, it was a relief to arrive at a very homely looking bed and breakfast, just on the outskirts of the town where we were enthusiastically greeted and kissed by the owner who asked if we could speak Welsh (her first language) and showed us around her beautifully kept house, giving us mobile and house numbers, urging us to call her if we had any problems. Feeling instantly relaxed despite the four bus journeys behind me, I sat down happily to decide which tea house to sample. Looking down the names on the map, Ty Gwen, Breuddwyd, Ty Cymraeg, I couldn’t pick an instant winner and instead resolved to visit as many as possible during my two night stay and walked from the house with tingling tea leaf anticipation.

Twenty -four cups of tea later and endless amounts of cake and scones and I sat in Ty Te Caerdydd, the tea house chosen for Diana’s auspicious visit in 1995 and felt that I had given Gaiman the best tea sampling possible. I had drank in tea houses from 1890, spread spwnj jam surrounded by Welsh dolls and tea towels and wolfed down endless tarten gwstard served by the great-granddaughter of Gaiman’s first teahouse. The tea was indeed endless, served in proper china pots, dressed in traditional woollen cosys and often served by kindly old women who patted you on your shoulder and urged you to have a top-up.

Leaving Gaiman for a night bus to the Lakes District I felt a pang of regret, although the town was very small with a population of just over five thousand and the main pastime was the tea houses, I had been touched by the friendliness of the people and the strangeness of the little town which offered homelike comforts in the middle of the bleak Patagonian landscape. Especially intriguing was the figure of Joaquin Alonso who is a 89 year old man who greeted me at the entrance to Parque El Desafio, which was his single handed work of art, origninally started with painted bottles to amuse his grandchildren but which now holds over 50,000 recycled bottled and cans in fun and unusual shapes, all crafted by Joaquin himself.

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Photos

bed and breakfast
A nice change after camping on the beach

The oldest house in Gaiman
Built in 1874 by David Roberts and one of the only non-tea centered attractions