Two days out of Buenos Aires we arrived in our first Patagonian town, Puerto Madryn, a piece of Wales in Argentina. The first settlers in Puerto Madryn came form Wales to build a new life in the Americas where they could retain their culture and lifestyle.
Puerto Madryn was a small isolated settlement, like many in Patagonia and has only recently been developed in the last fifty years as the Argentinian government encouraged the development of Patagonia by encouraging both industry and people to move there. Argentinians are encouraged to move to Patagonia with a 40% uplift in their wages. Puerto Madryn has a pleasant urban beach, but most of the buildings are pretty new.
While Puerto Madryn is on the cruise ship circuit, principally because of the Welsh culture, the big draw in the area is the Peninsular Valdes, a large national park that has world-renowned marine wildlife and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Peninsular is a large treeless block of land connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land, which is almost desert like in its vegetation and creates two large bays with the mainland.
We were not in the right months to see the breeding southern right whales, but there were large colonies of breeding sea lions and elephant seals, both of which had recently given birth to their young. The large males had already left but there were many females, juveniles and young pups stocking up on food ready to go out to sea. The sea lions in particular make an enormous noise, while the elephant seals, especially the males are gigantic. Some alpha male elephant seals allegedly can have harems of up to a hundred females and can weight up to three tonnes.
For those of you familiar with Attenborough’s Blue Planet, the Valdes Peninsular is where orcas beach themselves to pick off the young elephant seals from the sandy beaches. This time we did not see any orcas but for those lucky enough the drama must be spectacular.
The Peninsular is also home to a breeding colony of Magellan Penguins, who stand sentry on one of the large sand spits in the middles of the island. Again the penguins had just bred and were in the process of refreshing their feathers.
In Trelew, to the South of Puerto Madryn is another centre of Welsh culture in Argentina. Here there are a handful of traditional Welsh Tea Rooms serving classic Breakfast Tea, scones and cakes. This being Argentina, many of the cakes also had large amounts of dulche de leche, in addition to the more traditional cakes.
The Spanish spoken in Puerto Madryn and Trelew has what can only be described as a Welsh accent, with the rhythms that are similar to the Welsh speaking English. It is quite different from the more traditional accents in Argentina.
Date 07/03/2018 to 09/03/2018