Puerto Madryn - Trelew
Trip Start
Jan 2003
1
157
200
Trip End
Dec 2003
Trelew, Argentina
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Years ago, I remember reading of a place in the deepest depths of Argentina where they speak Welsh. Well I´m here and it´s true. Well, sort of true. We´ve (Dan, Vanessa, Kirsty and I) found one person who speaks Welsh. And we´ve had Welsh tea. I didn´t even know there was such a thing but for an hour the four of us drank tea and ate cakes and scones until we could no more. It was lucky this was on offer in the nearby town of Gaiman as our set lunch did everything it could to dampen our opinion of Argentinian cuisine.
It was a set menu with only one starter option and only two main courses we could understand. The starter was a bizarre but original concoction - pea mayonnaise served with the omnipresent cheese and processed ham. Dan did everything within his capabilities to make it look like we´d all made a respectable dent in it but even so, the chef must have been cursing the bloody foreigners who didn´t take to his unique recipe. Not as much however as we cursed him after the mains arrived. Cutting our losses we turned down desert, the coffee took forever and was burnt but the clincher was the bill. We should have checked before we ordered but to be hit with a bill of more than it would have cost for four fillet steaks and side orders in a decent restaurant was a bitter pill to swallow. Not quite as bitter as the pea mayonnaise however!
Our other achievement in Trelew was a visit to the relatively close (only two hours along a gravel road through barren sceney) Magellanic penguin colony. Here, the Argentinian government´s lack of respect for wildlife really came into its own as you walk amongst thousands of docile waddling penguins. It would have made a great souvenir to just pick one up and take it away but something tells me even the Argentines may have found fault with this.
Our two nights in trelew were boozy but fun as the four of us plus Joanna, a girl Dan and Vanessa had met previously, spent our time drinking and chatting in the hotel´s funky bar, wondering why the hell there was a space shuttle simulator in the local park and even rescuing a kitten stuck up a tree. If we were hosting an awards ceremony for our travels, Vanessa would undoubtedly walk away with the "Most Useless Item Of Clothing Award" for her white linen trousers. Unfortunately our time with the three of them has come to an end as we head back up to Buenos Aires tomorrow while they continue south to the clodest part of Argentina where I´m sure white linen trousers will really come into their own!
