Northern Patagonia, Whales and the Welsh

Los Alerces National Park

Lake near Bariloche

Los Alerces National Park

We had a relatively short bus ride to Bariloche (6 hours!). Bariloche sits on the northern end of the lake district in northern Patagonia. Its a beautiful location, surrounded by snow capped mountains and sitting on the edge of a huge turquoise lake. The area feels like Switzerland, even the buildings are similar style - chalets and ski lodges are everywhere. We took a couple of walks in the surrounding area, then a couple of days later we got the bus to Esquel. Esquel was yet another town that didn´t feel particularly touristy! Esquel serves as the base for visits to the Los Alerces national park, a huge park about an hour away. On the first day we took a bus to the town of Trevelin, originaly settled by welsh immigrants in the late 1800´s when they moved west away from the east coast in search of more land for farming. It was a sleepy little place, the people looked very British complete with pasty faces! We went into a welsh tearoom (one of several) and had a welsh tea, a huge plate of cakes and scones. I ate those, Emma had a pint of tea. We then found a fantastic welsh history museum with original items from the first Welsh settlers.

Los Alerces National Park

The second day we took a tour to Los Alerces Park, but we struggled to find a tour originaly as they are 2 months away from the start of the season. We ended up on a trip full of Argentinian OAP´s, and the tour was in Spanish! The people were great though, they kept coming over and explaining things to us (in spanish, but slower than the guide) and had a great sense of humour. I have perfected my football conversations in Spanish, so talked a lot about Messi, Maradona, and the world cup with the Guys in the group. Emma talked about Guitierez of Newcastle! The scenery was predictably breathtaking - lakes, mountains and pine forests.

Mother Whale off Puerto Madryn

We took an overnight bus to Puerto Madryn on the Atlantic coast. It is an unattractive seaside town, and was the first town the Welsh settled in 1885. There is still evidence of the first shelters they built in the clay next to the beach. The main reason was to visit the Whales on the coast that were there to breed. We took a boat trip out to see the Whales and watched them for a couple of hours, a mother and her pup played close to the boat. It was wonderful watching them so close. Later in the day we also went to see a seal colony further down the coast, hundreds of Seals were lazing around on the beach conserving energy waiting for the tide to come in and carry them back into the sea.

Seal and pups

That night we took yet another long bus ride (this country is far too big!!) for 20hours south to a town called Rio Gallegos which was very unpleasant looking. We had to wait for 4 hours for a connecting bus to El Calafate so wondered around the town for a while before giving up and going back to the bus station. The next bus took 5 hours so we got to the hostal at 1am. Far too much travelling in the last few days, and we are still nearly 1000km from Tierra Del Fuego where we catch a flight back to Buenos Aires next week.