Cwm Hyfryd
Trip Start
Aug 03, 2006
1
56
75
Trip End
Dec 13, 2006
Trevelin, Argentina
Friday, November 10, 2006
A 5 hour bus ride with a change in Esquel brought us to Trevelin - the first Welsh colony of our visit. On the way into town we played the game "lets count (in Welsh) how many Welsh flags we can see". Steve was very excited seeing this symbol of home so far away in Patagonia and was looking forward to finding out more about the Welsh settlement in Argentina.
The original hostel we booked looked pretty far out of town and a tad bit expensive (not only are we lazy, but tight too) so we found another hostel up on the hill nearer the centre of town with fantastic views of the mountains. The owners were a friendly Argentinian couple with no Welsh ancestry. There was Bibiana who had an excellent level of Welsh (she even tried to correct Steve's pronounciation at one point, which he was not impressed with!), her partner Charly who also knew a few phrases and their dog Tango who was obsessed with playing fetch with big rocks
01 - View from the front garden of the hostel
. We felt welcome and immediately comfortable. The view from our bedroom window of the lower Andes made us want to stay there forever.We went out for some lunch and only in small-town Argentina would all restaurants and cafes be closed preceisely when a hungry tourist wants to eat. The only place we could find was a petrol station which had a massive "make your own cheese toastie" machine.
We then went for a walk and to check out the tomb of the horse Malacara. The grand-daughter of the man that owned the horse (John Daniel Evans) had set up a monument and museum. She was full of great stories and very animated and passionate, if not slightly bonkers. There was a tear in her eye more than a few times as she recounted the the same story that she tells five times a day.
She had a huge amount of resources scattered around the original house used by her grandfather, such as original diaries and passports. She would explain something, then dig under a pile of papers and come out with some original and very fragile document such as poems written on the first anniversary of the first landing by the Mimosa. (Tara: I could see Steve's brain turning and, when she gave him a second to speak, he asked her if all of this invaluable information was scanned and backed up
02 - Nice front garden to relax in
. When she told them they were not he offered to come back the next day to begin tackling the huge job of preserving this piece of history. (plus nothing gives Steve more pleasure than a little scanning - he was like a kid in a candy store))We were told when we got back to the hostel that there was one other Welshman staying named Iwan. We knew a Welsh Iwan from the Spanish school in Cusco. Turned out to be the same one and him and a couple Welsh teachers working at the local school were in nearby Esquel watching a choir practice and going for some drinks so we joined them. (Tara: It was strange seeing Steve speaking Welsh, especially when I am so used to him speaking Spanish.)
Thursday
Tara: The next day Steve went off to scan for Clery and, as I do not get the same satisfaction out of organizational tasks, I went on a tour of the Los Alerces National Park with Iwan. We joined 50 pensioners and our 1 Spanish speaking guide for a boat trip through the lake and a walking tour of the ancient forest. The guide loved to talk about trees. We did not understand a word of it and were a little bored with the pace of the walk but there are no better surroundings to be stuck listening to a man babble on in another language
03 - The monkey puzzle tree
. It was gorgeous! At the end we did a little hike on our own to feel like we had had a full day out in the forest.Then it was back to the hostel to meet Steve. Here's how his day went:
Steve: To say my day of scanning was unsuccessful would be an understatement. Firs of all, I turned up at Clery's house bright and early (well, 11am by the time I'd dragged myself out of bed) only to be asked to come back at 5pm when the cleaner had finished! This ticked me off a bit, and what was worse was discovering that Clery didn't have a CD burner, hardly any room on her hard drive and no way of plugging in any memory card using USB to be able to take the scans to an internet cafe to be burned. Long and short of it was it would have been a complete waste of time scanning in the images, so essentially my day was wasted. Grrr... Never mind. I went and had an ice cream with Helen, the Welsh teacher in the village (from Cardiff) and had a very pleasent afternoon, so all was not lost.
That evening was bit more successful. Tara was hungry after her day-long adventure so we went for a famous 5pm Welsh Tea. Not famous in Wales you understand, but more a custom brought over an developed by the Welsh settlers in Patagonia. It consists of a bottomless cup of slightly spiced tea with an artery-clogging selection of heavily buttered bread, scones and 5 different slices of cake, including Torta Galesa (the famous black Welsh cake of the region). It's too much for one person so we had to share.
Later that evening, a random Argentinian who was a seafood salesman had broken down near Trevelin so was staying over for a couple of nights
04 - Strange to see signs in Welsh
. He was also a trained chef so offered to cook up a very nice roasted stuffed pepper meal for us all. With a bit of wine as well, it turned out to be a good day after all.Friday
The rest of our stay in Travelin involved sleeping in (hard to get out of bed when the view from it is snow capped mountains and a lush green valley) and a 14km bike ride up to Nant-y-Fall waterfall followed by a nice glass of wine and bangers and mash (felt like a taste of the UK) on the patio overlooking the valley.
DAILY FACTS
- Stayed at: Casa Verde. Casa Verde and Trevelin itself were little gems. Such friendly people and beautiful surroundings, we could see why the hostel owners had come here and never left. It is that kind of place. Highly recommended.
Comments
Monkey Madness
Great Monkey Puzzle Tree! You may be interested in this one I spotted in NZ:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mihobson/98382939/