Touristy places are nice, full of overpriced knickknacks and once-in-a-lifetime destinations, but they are not always what capture the interest of a traveler like myself (Yes, I am now a TRAVELER, which means I am not technically where I should be.).
Oh, I make pilgrimages to all the usual touristed places, like Península Valdés north of Puerto Madryn and the imitation Swiss alpine town of Bariloche in the Andes. But sometimes I come upon those odd corners of the world that shake up my previous notions of a place and its people. Argentine folk metal was one, and now I can add Trevelin, Chubut, to the list of "What the hell is THAT doing there?"
Trevelin is a small town outside of the o
nly marginally larger town of Esquel in the western part of the Chubut province. It was founded by Welsh settlers in the late 19th century that came from the dry, sandy port town of Trelew, to cultivate the more arable land out west. Odd bits and pieces of Welsh culture appear unexpectedly throughout the town, which is really no wider than 3 or 4 blocks. A few tea houses open after siesta to serve high tea to tourists and locals that wander in for a taste of Wales (?!) and the regional variation on fruit cake, "la torta negra galesa" or Patagonian Black Welsh Cake. The red Welsh Dragon decorates many doors and signs, and the local museum has translations in English and Welsh. I thought Spanish was confusing, but Welsh is crazy incomprehensible.There were a few moments as we meandered throughout the town, under the flowering crab-apples in the bright Patagonian sunshine where the bizarreness of the situation would hit me. What were the Welsh doing here, in the middle-of-nowhere South America, anyway? The Welsh colonization of Chubut in the 1860s was the brain-child of the Welsh nationalist Michael D. Jones, who was looking for a place to defend and retain Welsh identity away from English influence. Jones chose the area based on Argentina's welcoming European immigration policies and the promise of 100 acres of land per immigrant in Patagonia. Despite many rough years of crop failure and innumerable difficulties, the colonists established themselves in the region and their descendants still live in the area. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Often, in my journeying, I find myself scrounging for some kind of meaning, a significance to all that I have seen. Likely, it doesn't mean anything at all, other than that world is a bigger and stranger place than I or anyone could imagine, and towns like Trevelin are living proof of it. Sometimes the things that you remember aren't in the guidebook, because as cool as the whales, the elephant seals, and the penguins were, that's not what I wanted to write about, is it?
