Some believe that good things happen when they are unexpected. The calm conditions, the seabirds slowly picking up from the water at our wake, and the gorgeous sunrise entering the Nuevo Gulf that harbours the Patagonian town of Puerto Madryn were certainly a treat for the early risers. The exploration spirit is alive! After entering this unexpected port and having an early lunch, off we went to explore.
Some of us opted for strolling the pleasant beach and checking out the town, including a visit to the eco-centro were displays and videos gave an insight on the extremely rich marine life of these waters. Others preferred to check what is probably the most famous paleontological museum in South America, Dr. Feruglio, which exhibits skeletons of some of the largest dinosaurs to ever roam the planet, excavated during the last decades in different areas of Patagonia.
The third and by far the largest group followed our intrepid historian, David Barnes, on a quest to taste the famous welsh tea served in the nearby town of Gaiman. Welsh settlers arrived in these lands around 1860s assuming they would have been given pastoral and cultivable lands similar to what they were used to in their country of origin. What they found, however, was incredibly harsh and much drier conditions than expected so much so that they could almost not survive their first winter in the area. To their immense credit not only did they overcome the odds against them but they thrived as a community and went on to populate the Chubut valley all the way into the Andes. Amazingly they also made friends with the Tehuelches or ‘Aonikenk’ a native tribe that inhabited the area and in doing so they became the only white people to live in harmony avoiding any incidents with the natives in the whole of Patagonia. Over a century-and-a-half later their descendants are still very proud of their origins, speak the fluent Welsh that they learned in their own schools, and have a very strong cultural connection with Wales. The star of the day, undoubtedly, was the Welsh chorus, joined by the refined voice of David Barnes!
