Low Key At The Sea, Patagonia Welsh-style : Puerto Madryn : Wed 5th & Thurs 6th Feb

Wednesday. A day for recovering, lying in til midday, eventually going to the supermarket to buy pasta sauce and making a huge pot of spaghetti with tomato and basil for lunch. Sarah barely makes it through and has to go back to bed for another sleep. Exhausted. I write a few ugly musical ditties to pass the time. Patrick floats in and out, looking dazed. Everyone is in need of a strong wind to blow the cobwebs away, but the dry gale hurtling itself down the streets doesn't help. The town is empty. We have a dinner of leftover steak, one of which is definitely the biggest steak I have ever seen that hasn't been edited with Photoshop. I enjoy a bottle or two from my birthday present from Sarah - a six pack of Warsteiner including some limited edition beermats.

We crash into bed early.

Thursday morning. We have to swap our comfy private room for a dorm for our final night here. Bags are packed and we move into a big room with eight bunk beds and one bathroom. Could be ok, could be horrid.

Doesn't matter. After breakfast and Sarah getting her washing done we are heading south to the town of Trelew ('trey-lay-oo', not like somewhere that has a Rose or something going on), a fair-sized hub about an hour from Puerto Madryn, and notable for its strong Welsh heritage and delicious teas.

Or so we thought. When I checked the travel guide I realised it was actually the tiny town of Gaiman that we wanted to go to. The reason was the Parque El Desafío, a glowing tribute to artistic intent. When a grandfather decided to entertain his grandchildren, he recycled 80000 plastic bottles and cans into a crazy garden of impressionistic reconstructions and Dali reproductions. It sounds like exactly the sort of thing that we love to find.

Puerto Madryn has been a bit of a godsend for travelling. Normally the bus terminal is 20 blocks or so away from the town centre. Here, due to the flattened layout, it's merely 4 blocks away from our hostel. The $25 bus to Trelew barrels down the dusty road, no problems, passing the great red flag tribute to Antonio Gil on the way. Gil was a famous gaucho bandito back in the day,  and still received tribute around the country. The guide books would have you believe gaucho-ism is dead and buried, but actually it is pretty difficult to avoid, though certainly not overpoweringly so. Seeing grizzled old men with their flat caps on, swarthy skin, you know you are in the presence of men's men. It is wonderful when you pass one on his small horse, small dog close by, heading across the grey dust land without much hurry.

At Trelew we call into a small cafe for lunch during our spare hour, and enjoy a big sandwich and choripán. Its the first cafe we've been in where you need to buzz to get the door opened. Feels like home.

It's another brief 25 minute bus ride to Gaiman, its so brief it feels strange. We jump off... and are confronted with the Welsh dragon. EVERYWHERE.

This is the main square. Dead exciting. I suppose there was a time when Gaiman was a big tourist hub supporting a whole lot of Welsh tea-houses and restaurants, but on this Thursday afternoon we were virtually the only people on the streets. It may have been the siesta, but still.

This excellent sculpture celebrates music. It was pretty big.

Traditional tea shops abound, although not quite as much as the guide books suggested. Ty Nain looked like it had been shut for quite a while.

The only sculpted trees in South America.

Even the Welsh fought against the British in the Falkland War!

The town can sometimes end a bit suddenly...

...but at least it has red postboxes.

At the end of the main street we discovered the start of Avenida Brown, where Parque El Desafío was supposed to be. I expected a grand sign and a big entrance. Nothing was apparent. We walked a few minutes up the road before I found a human being to ask. His reply? "Sure, the park is back there, but it's destroyed".

No joke. The whole project was ruined, whether by accident or intent. A shame, it looked like it could have been great.

We left, amused and disappointed. Amused, as this was not the first time we had arrived somewhere only to discover it no longer existed. Disappointed to have missed out on an artistic oddity. Only one thing left to do: wait til 4pm and go for a big Welsh tea.

This is the first house of Gaiman, explanation below.

This is the shield of Chubut, the province within which we are. I like it, mostly because it says 'corn, and an aqueduct with a steak at the end' 

Other notable attractions of Gaiman include this tunnel, through which the local iron ore train travelled. I went in, Sarah didn't, and it was a lot shorter than we expected.

Eventually we went to the oldest tea house in the town and bought Tea. $130 gets you a refillable pot of dishwater (albeit tasty dishwater, but nothing too Protestant about it) and a huge plate of bread, scones and cake. Throw in some gooseberry jam and damson jam and you'd find me a mighty happy individual.

A wild number of tea towels around these parts...

We walked out the tea house and nearly immediately jumped into a bus back to Trelew. There we had 5 minutes between disembarking and reembarking. Just long enough to take photos of a giant penguin and a dinosaur skull. As if everyone bus terminal has these.

The view of Puerto Madryn on the way back.

Got back at 8pm, somehow invited ourselves along with Patrick to meet a few more guys from the hostel at Mr Jones' bar for artesian beers and dinner. I, in my foolishness, order the world's saltiest chop suey. Sarah seems happy with her chicken in yellow (curry) sauce. We have barely arrived when we are leaving, back to the hostel and some individuals who snore much worse than I. I know some of you will be stunned at that suggestion.