Advertisement
Published: February 28th 2006
As promised at the end of the last blog, I've been on pilgrimage to Welsh Patagonia. Or, at least my stomach has, as I visited a number of Welsh tea shops. For those of you that don´t know, my mother was Welsh.
When I was young ( I know that´s difficult to imagine), our parents used to take us down to visit the Welsh relatives in the school holidays. A highlight of those childhood visits was our Aunt Olive´s teas. The Welsh teas in Patagonia though, didn't live up to my memories of the huge spreads that our Aunt Olive used to put on. Even if my mother would always accuse us of having hollow legs, it would have been rude not to have done justice to the effort that went into Olive´s spreads.
The Welsh first arrived in Patagonia in 1865. In the 1860´s more than 200,000 Welsh emigrated to different places in the world...the USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil...and Patagonia.
Back then the English tried to force the Welsh to express themselves in English. So, many Welsh people decided they preferred exile, so that they could make a better life for themselves and preserve their language and
culture.
The Argentinian government was also looking for settlers, partly to ensure their territorial claims against Chile and even the English.
Welsh envoys who had only seen a little of the Patagonian coastline from a ship deck reported a land of milk and honey. So, on the 28th of May 1865, 150 Welsh men, women and children left Liverpool, thinking they were going to establish their Utopia in the Promised Land. A new Wales.
As they left Liverpool they are reported to have all sung a hymn:
We have found a better land
In a far off region in the South,
In Patagonia.
There we shall live in peace
Without fear of traitors nor swords
And there Wales shall be King.
(Patagonia, Roberto Hosne; ISBN 950-9255-89-0) The Harsh Mistress
But, they soon discovered that Patagonia was a harsh mistress.(For those of you that are Science Fiction fans, it should not be difficult to spot the reference to a
Robert Heinlein book in that last phrase). The land was arid and the climate harsh. The colonists were not farmers, they were mostly coal miners from the valleys. Their crops failed. In the first few years they were forced into food rationing and some people left the colony. It was only bloody minded stubbornness, Argentinian government subsidies and the discovery eventually of a way to irrigate the land,
Desolate desert landscape in Patagonia
A stop on the bus somewhere between El Chalten and Los Antiguos. Most of Patagonia is like this - empty.that allowed the colony to survive and not go the way of many previous attempts to colonize Patagonia.
At the end of the last blog I was still in Chile. On the 4th of February I caught a bus from Pt Natales back to El Calafate in Argentina. I spent 2 nights there, which allowed me to work on the last blog.
MONDAY 6th
It was a relatively short journey to El Chalten for Patagonia of only 6 hours. I hadn't made any booking for lodgings in advance, which was probably a mistake. January and February is the peak season for tourism in Patagonia, because of the climate, but also because its the long school holidays in Argentina. I don´t like making bookings in advance, it ties my down to a schedule. El Chalten is a small village and accommodation in the tourist season is always very tight (and therefore expensive). When there are a lot of tourists around they can afford to hike up the prices. I arrived in El Chalten at about 1.30pm. I spent about half an hour looking for places, only to find all the reasonably priced places full. There was though
a large, out of place building on a hill in the middle of the village (it is the very prominent building on the hill in my photo of El Chalten). It looked expensive. It was, but I didn't care; I just wanted to put my backpack down. So, I booked 2 nights at the Hotel Los Ceros, for a staggering $US530. That was the price for 2 nights and included breakfast and dinner. The dinners were something else - when I ordered the simplest things on the menu they arrived looking like a work of art.
TUESDAY 7th
I went down for breakfast at 7am, which was the earliest the hotel served it. If they had started breakfast at 6am, I would have been there. I intended to spend a long day walking. When I started the walk it was overcast. I was a bit worried that I had missed my chance of the best views, because the weather was going to get worse. I need not have worried as within an hour the sky cleared. I walked through stunning scenery with the peak of Cerro Fitzroy in front of me.
Cerro Fitzroy was named after the captain
of the Beagle
(Robert Fitzroy) - whose ship took
Charles Darwin on his 5 year round the world trip. After which Darwin wrote
The Origin of Species based on his observations. It was a pleasant 4 hour walk to the final viewing point, until the last 50 minutes. From Rio Blanco there is a very steep climb up a hill which was hard work. The trail was also very eroded. There is a sign at the bottom of the hill that says that this is the most eroded part of the trail. They are not kidding! Without the yellow sticks that they have placed every few yards it would be impossible to find the route of the trail. This is a serious environmental issue. As a hiker you may think you are very environmentally aware. But, it is the sheer numbers of boots on the ground that causes the damage. It was very obvious that the large number of tourists are causing serious problems. Climbing that hill was hot work, along with having to watch my feet because the slope was so badly eroded.
Anyway the reward was worth it. When I crossed the brow of the hill I saw Shangri-La, or at least it
would have been without all the other tourists! The mountain is framed by the turquoise blue of Laguna de los Tres.
As I crossed over the top of the hill the temperature suddenly dropped. I had to put all the layers of clothes back on, that I´d only just removed when I was climbing the hill. There was a very cold wind blowing down from the permanent ice on the mountains. At that point, I was only just below the level of the permanent ice on the mountainsides. I walked around the lake a little, where I found a sign that said it was forbidden to go any further unless you had registered as a proper climbing expedition.
Once I had walked all that way I wasn´t about to turn around straight away. Although, one person I met at the Laguna de los Tres had to do just that. He, was catching a bus out of El Chalten in the evening. So, he had to turn straight back in order to catch his bus.
I though relaxed for a few hours taking in the majesty of the view. Then of course it was a 4 hour walk
back to El Chalten. I was tired, not surprisingly; so I had an early night after a very good (and elaborate) dinner. Although not before soaking my sore bones in the Jakussi in my bathroom.
WEDS 8th
I took it easy after the long day the previous day. I did though change to a cheaper hotel. I had arranged the booking on the day I arrived in El Chalten. I moved into the Fitzroy Inn, which cost me a mere $US78. Nothing after the price of the Hotel Ceros! I only did a short 2 hour walk in the surrounding countryside during the day.
THURS 9th - FRI 10th
I spent all day on a bus. It left El Chalten at 8.30am and didn´t arrive in Los Antiguos until after midnight. Most of the journey was on Ruta 40, which runs all along the spine of Argentina from the North to the South. This far south though much of the road is untarred. The bus passes through miles and miles of unpopulated bleak landscape. When the bus finally arrived in Los Antiguos I fell into the nearest Auberge. In fact, the bus stopped in
front of the lodgings, which is the place that most of us on the bus, stayed the night. It meant I shared a dormitory with 5 strangers, although they weren't all strangers later; in particular I had a long chat with a Swiss guy at breakfast. My bus though wasn't until 4pm, so I had to kill time during the day. I did consider a trip to some 10,000 year old cave paintings. But, the tour left at 7am. I didn't want to hang around Los Antiguos another day even though it is a very pretty village there is not much to do in the place. It has a very pleasant micro climate, which means that poplar trees shelter farms of cherries, strawberries and peaches. Famously the indigenous Teluelche came here to spend their last days. Should the developers notice this small Andean border village, it would make a very good retirement village today.
The bus left on time at 4pm. It was a 7 hour journey from near the Chilean border to the Argentinian coast. When we came down from the mountainous region, there was mile after mile of flat bleak arid grasslands. A few hours into the
journey the bleak vista was broken by row upon row of nodding oil pumps disappearing over the horizon. I traveled through this oil industry dominated countryside for several hours. The only relief was when we entered a few shabby towns which were obviously company towns. When I say shabby, they were littered with the detritus of the oil industry and looked like temporary frontier settlements.
Finally the bus rolled into Comodoro Rivadavia. It is a city of 160,000 which also owes its existence to the oil industry. Much of Argentina´s oil comes from this area of Patagonia. Although it was late, I found a hotel near the bus stop - the Hotel Comodoro, which was a very nice place that only cost 105 pesos ($US35) a night. I suspect the same standard of place would have been at least 50%!m(MISSING)ore expensive in the more touristy parts of Patagonia.
SAT 11th - SUNDAY 12th
At 11am I caught a bus to Trelew, which is one of the towns that was first colonized by Welsh settlers. I arrived into the town at 4pm. I walked a few blocks from the bus station to the Hotel Galicia which
only cost 75 pesos a night. It was a very nice mid range hotel which could easily cost 150 - 200 pesos a night in other parts of Patagonia. In the evening I visited the Welsh cultural museum (Regional Museum Lewis´ Town) which is in the old railway station. I also visited the MEF museum. The MEF, Museo Paleontologico Egidio Feruglio, to give it its full name, is also a major centre of scientific research. Some of the largest dinosaur fossils have been found in Patagonia, so
there were Giants in those days as I suggested in my last blog.
The next day Sunday everything in town was dead. Walking around town I noticed all the Welsh street names. I also noticed an old Welsh chapel and even a Welsh Bingo Club!
MONDAY 13th
I moved to an even cheaper hotel, the Hotel Centro which cost me even less at a mere 50 pesos. Although it was a bit shabby around the edges it still had en suite bathrooms, multi-channel cable TV and included the breakfast. In the afternoon I took the local bus to the Welsh village settlement of Gaiman, which is one of the original Welsh settlements. There is
not that much to do in the village except hang out in the Welsh Teashops, which is what I did.
TUES 14th
I moved on to the nearby town of Peurto Madryn, a one hour bus ride away. I booked into the Gran Palace Hotel for 95 pesos. I noticed that the prices here seemed to be a good third higher than in Trelew. Peurto Madryn has the much larger tourist industry, it is where various tours to the nearby National Park start and it also has a sandy beach. The beach was packed with people, most of them probably Argentinian tourists. January and February are the long school holidays so there were a lot of kids in evidence. But, it was much too hot for my comfort, and anyway I´m not a fan of beaches so crowded that you can hardly move, particularly beaches full of kids; so I hid from the sun during the afternoon, only emerging in the evening to eat.
WEDS 15th
I went on an all day tour to Peninsula Valdes, the nearby National Park. I saw lot of seals, but at other times of year you can see
Los Antiguos
Note the sign that says Plazoleta Islas Malvinas. Every town in Argentina seems to have streets and squares named after the islands. Penguins and Right Whales. If I had been lucky I might have seen Orca´s (Killer Whales) at this time of year but I didn't. Although the Orca´s are around, the chances of seeing one is very low, because there are not many of them. They have sometimes been seen snatching seals from the beach at high tide at this time of year. That would have been some photo!
THURS 16th - FRI 17th
I moved back to Trelew because I preferred the atmosphere of the town to Puerto Madryn. After booking into a hotel I discovered there was no bus to Esquel until 11.30pm on the 17th. Esquel is a town in the Argentinian Lake District near to the Welsh settlement of Trevelin.
SAT 18th
I arrived in Esquel very early at 6.30am. As I arrived in town I noticed a sign that said that Esquel was a "No Nuclear Municipality". I wandered around the town looking for places, eventually booking into the Hotel Teluelche for 160 pesos a night.
In the afternoon I took another trip to visit Welsh teashops, this time in Trevelin. The teashop I went to played Welsh hymns
sung in Welsh as background music. Prominently displayed on the walls are newspaper clippings and a large painting of a woman who was the grandmother of the owner; after whom the shop was named. The old woman in the picture died in 1986 aged 103 years old. The family who run the shop trace their roots back to the early Welsh settlers of the colony.
I also visited the Welsh Cultural museum in the town, which is housed in an old factory. In that museum is a reproduction of a famous photo of the Wild Bunch, Cassidy and Sundance´s gang. The outlaws were vain and loved having their photos taken, which gave the Pinkerton detectives plenty of pictures to put on their wanted posters.
Sundance and Cassidy had friends in Trelew, and often visited the town from their estancia, when they lived in Patagonia. (See my previous entry
Outlaws and rebels). Even the governor of the province (Chubut), Julio Lezama, took a liking to them. An important member of the gang was Ethel, Sundance´s partner. She was an active member of the criminal gang, so really it ought to be Cassidy, Sundance and Ethel. The governor of Chubut is reported
to have danced with Ethel and was convinced that she was a charming "belle" of American society.
In the evening I returned to Esquel. When I got off the bus I walked into a parade that was celebrating the centenary of the founding of Esquel. Whilst watching the parade I was handed a leaflet objecting to a proposed mining development in the area. The area depends on tourism, not only because of the Welsh connection but also because Esquel is the gateway to the Parque Nacional Los Alerces. There are a lot of hiking opportunities from the town. The company that wants the mining concession has a very bad record of destroying the environment in other parts of South America, including contaminating the water supplies. Water is a precious resource in Patagonia and tourism is vital to the economy of Esquel and nearby towns. Even my hotel had a petition on the desk in the lobby about the issue. The internet address for the campaign is:
www.noalamina.i8.com SUNDAY 19th
I took the bus to Bariloche in the morning, a journey of a mere 4 hours. I was continuing to move north. Bariloche is a town of
120,000 people in the Argentinian Lake District on the shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi. It is a major tourist destination, for the nearby national park and all the chocolate shops in town. I booked into a slightly worn hotel, the Hotel Copahue, which only cost me 60 pesos a night ($US20).
I thought they were charging me 80 pesos, I must have misheard, because I had a pleasant surprise a few days later at check out to find it was only 60 pesos a night.
MONDAY 20th
I went on an all day trip, white water rafting on the Rio Manso near Baraloche. It was a good way to see the beauty of the countryside. Most of the people on the trip were Argentinian, although there was one English couple on the trip who are touring South America for six months and then South East Asia for another 6 months. We rafted up the river until we got to the border with Chile. There is a photo in this blog of me posing on the border.
TUESDAY 21st
I took a half day tour in the nearby countryside - the Circuito Chico tour. It
Regional Museum Lewis Town
This was the old train station and is now a musuem of Welsh culture. was disappointing, in that it seemed to be just an excuse to maximize buying opportunities. Huge coaches followed each other around the route, stopping off at view points full of stalls selling tourist tack. Although the views were good, I was sharing the experience with huge numbers of people.
In the afternoon I visited the museum which has a large display on the battles of the Mapuche people with the Spanish colonial authorities. There are still Mapuche people in the area, unlike many other indigenous peoples further south who were exterminated. I also tried to get a bus across the Andes to Chile. I tried 4 different companies, none of them could sell me a ticket before Friday, even though they all claimed to run daily services. I never had this problem when I was in Africa. In Africa they don´t worry about the buses being full - there is always room for another passenger! I didn't want to hang around in Bariloche that long. Instead I booked a ticket to San Martin de los Andes, which is further north in Argentina. San Martin de los Andes is a town of 30,000 on the shores of Lago Lacar. It
is a pretty little touristy town with a number of forested trails.
WEDS 22nd
I managed to miss my bus! I was in the bus station but still didn't see it because I misread my bus ticket. I thought the name printed in large letters at the top was the company. (It is the name of a bus company). In fact although I had been sold the ticket by one company, the bus actually belonged to another company, which was on the ticket as a small faded stamp at the bottom. So, the bus came and went without me noticing. It was only when I asked someone from the company that I thought I was traveling with, that I discovered my mistake. Despite that, they put me on another bus leaving a couple of hours later without charging extra.
So, I finally left Bariloche at 2pm. The scenery on the 3 and a half hour journey through the mountains was stunning, even though it was raining on and off.
When I arrived in San Martin de los Andes, I spent a considerable amount of time looking for lodgings. A lot of places where full. I
MEF Geological Museum
Many Dinasaur fossils have been found in the nearby countryside wasn't surprised, as it is still the local tourist season. The kids have not gone back to school yet. Finally I found the Hotel ISSN which cost me 100 pesos a night.
THURS 23rd
I got up late, then went on a walk in the forested trails that surround the town.
I asked about crossing the border into Chile, only to find I would have to wait till Weds to get a seat. So, instead I decided to continue north.
FRIDAY 24th FEB
I caught a bus at 9.30am to Neuquen. Neuquen is a regional capital of 300,000 people. It is a modern city, but it is not a tourist town. It was a very long journey through miles and miles of nothing. I stopped in Neuquen to break the journey and allow myself time to write this blog.
I've now left Patagonia. With luck there will not be such a long gap until the next update. Stay with me.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.209s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 14; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0742s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Caroline
non-member comment
Still reading!
Hi Stuart! Just to say I'm still reading your Blogs having met you on the FeatherBed cruise in Knysna - so I'm also an Armchair Traveller and thoroughly enjoying them. Safe travels - Caroline.