Gaucho's and God, Horses & Heaven and the weekly meeting of the broken leg society....

Blowing a gale, Patagonia in the roaring forties, visited Rawson and Playa Union – both of which were closed! Tumbleweed rolling across the highways, feral dogs, shuttered ice cream parlours painted in peeling pastels and waves to shame Hawaii. Headed to Gaiman, the epicentre of Wales in Patagonia with heavy hearts – what on earth can we do here for 48hrs – we’ve already brought our flight forward a day! Desperate for a Starbucks, we were blessed to find a Welsh bakery full of cakes and a latte. We lodged at Gwesty Tywi, run by Brenda and Diego, descendents of the original Welsh settlers, and were shown candlewick bedspreaded rooms with lime green sheets (obviously coloured bri nylon bed linen is the fashion du jour of South America). But this comes at a cost – all inclusive at £12.50 a night. We were further surprised to be entertained in this superficially closed town inhabited by people desperately hanging on to a culture of 130 year ago which no longer exists in the real Wales. This Argentinean version is a Wales of Welsh flags, afternoon tea houses and knitted Welsh ladies, with castles on tea towels and tea cosies on teapots.
We need to remember today is Sunday, so attendance at chapel is required, and we visited Bethel for the nativity play and carols (all in Welsh) but we did leave before the collection plate came round. However before chapel, we visited Dolavon and its watermills, drove the gravel roads amongst the original settler’s farms, found a plot belonging to the family Rees, visited the old railway station museum, and partook of a calorific Welsh afternoon tea at Ty Nain (Granny’s House) where Ant spoke fluently to the patrons in Welsh – impressive! This action packed afternoon, we also squeezed in a local rodeo run by the gauchos. We were the other side of the Chubut river, heard the loudspeakers, and were so excited to think we had found a sophisticated, exclusive, Argentinean Polo Match – Smiths Lawn eat your heart out we thought. Glad I didn’t bother to go back for my stilettos, as when we got there, it was a fiesta of local gauchos breaking in young horses in a frenzy of excitement. Gill made new friends (see photo). It was a while before we noticed that half the gauchos had broken legs and where on crutches – watching their style of horse breaking, we fully understood why!
After leaving chapel, gagging for a drink, we wandered the length of Gaiman’s two streets to find that bar culture is still to arrive. The ONLY watering hole was a grimy, formica, cobwebbed ,testosterone laden hole masquerading as an internet café with loud futbol on the old TV in the corner, with someone who looked as if he had survived the sinking of the Belgrano behind the bar – Mrs T would not have been welcome… but any port in a storm, so in we went! A small cerveca was about a gallon, and the vino blanco was sweet, served from a carton, warm and unceremoniously squeezed into a half pint glass – and glugged with glee! The only issue was that the internet part of the deal didn’t work, but after drinks of that size did we care? No!
Dinner in the only restaurant (Cornel Wini) was surprisingly good and again very cheap.
Good news, Derek’s mum strengthening, so he will make it only 2 days late.
Shopping outlook – dire, shopping forecast abysmal!