 Dagmar Gross Travel Stories | sitemap | log in
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"Valdés"
This is the tale of my trip to the Valdés Peninsula in Patagonia in November 2007. It is structured in a day-by-day system and starts on the first day with my departure from my home at the time of that trip near Dublin, ROI, and tells of all the impressions and experiences, most very good, but some bad, too, (although those only really occurred on the long Transatlantic flights there and back) that I had until I arrived back in my home just under two weeks later, in order to give the reader something to learn from about all the different aspects of such a journey and the different wonderful places and wildlife one can expect to find there.
When I was preparing for this trip, I noticed that there seemed to be very little literature on Patagonia in the English language out there. I was recommended Bruce Chatwin’s “In Patagonia” and found it very interesting, but he only concentrated on the human aspect of life down there and didn’t touch on the Valdés Peninsula and its so very rich wildlife at all, nor on the about 200-strong group of Welsh who came to settle in the nearby Chubut river valley in 1865, in order to preserve their culture in this environment in those days totally isolated from any other save that of the Native Tehuelches, with whom, I was extremely surprised when I found this out, they actually got on singularly well! They not only continued their tradition of “Eistedfodds” to the present day, but also that of Welsh tea, and nowadays one can have a typical Welsh tea served in many cases still by descendants of those original Welsh settlers! Especially in the quite tranquil-seeming small town of Gaiman, just a little upriver from Trelew the modern-day visitor can still find several of these teahouses. For myself, I actually did not pick one of these for my tea, but another one lying a little way out of Gaiman and rather more modern, in an unfortunately rather untypical Spanish Hacienda design. Now, why would I do this? Well, quite simply because Lady Diana Spencer, affectionately known in the entire Spanish-speaking world as “Lady Di”, had been to have her Welsh tea there apparently a few months before her fatal accident in Paris and I was curious to see the place for myself, and I found a large portrait of her hanging in the building to commemorate her visit.
I just want to mention here a truly fascinating first-hand account I found down there from which gleaned all the relevant historical information on this subject, written about 100 years ago by the Congregationalist minister Rev. Matthews who accompanied that first group of settlers out there and remained with them for the rest of his life. He wrote his account in the Welsh language, but it has since been translated by one of his descendents into Spanish, so that it can be more widely read. Like I said, I found it truly riveting.
Something I did find very interesting which I gleaned from Bruce Chatwin’s book was all the information he could clearly get together about the stay in that area of those two famous outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and their female companion Etta Place and the fact that they had actually stayed in the ‘Touring Club’ hotel in Trelew, which was totally new at that time and fitted out with all the mod-cons of the day! This, then, was what motivated me to also book a room there first of all for the night of my arrival and before I would set out for Puerto Madryn and the Peninsula. I do so hope this tale of mine will prove both helpful and a very enjoyable read for you and I wish you all the best if you indeed are planning to travel there, too!
And below are just some images to whet your appetite and show you how very up close and personal anyone can get to these whales during one of the trips to see them offered by the various businesses in Puerto Piramides on the Peninsula!
An excerpt from this story: I walked on and came to some steps hewn into the hard layer of rock containing infinite numbers of fossilized oyster shells. When I had reached the top, I read a sign a little further along asking people not to prise any loose for souvenirs. A few moments later, I came out onto a flat rocky outcrop and there was the now very calm sea before me, in the last rather silvery light that remained from the sun, which had already set by then, and that was being reflected onto those gently rippling waves. I breathed in deeply several times and felt myself trembling with the strong emotion of finally standing there, beside the beach of little Puerto Piramides, one of the places I had dreamed of coming to for so many years now. And as I stood there I began to scan the water for that so wished-for glimpse of a whale, but there was none. There was an awful lot of splashing going on below the cliffs towards my right, though, and in the increasing darkness I tried hard to identify the creatures that were causing all that noise, with very little success, however. A young French couple were there on the rocky terrace just a few steps away from me. They had lit a small fire and were obviously cooking something on it in a little camping pot. I greeted them and while the young man remained concentrated on the progress of the meal, I began to converse a little with the young woman; first in Spanish, but then I also tried out my French. Well, we understood each other, anyway, and she said she thought those creatures splashing about in the water nearby could be sea lions. Yes, they seemed to have the right size for it and every now and again, one was darting along the surface at quite a fast rate. Then the young woman told me that only five minutes or so earlier a whale had in fact swum right past where we were standing, but now it had disappeared completely. Oh well, I would still be here for a full six days, so I was sure to see some from this spot, too. Oh, wasn’t this wonderful! To be right in the middle of this wonderful nature reserve! How very privileged I felt.
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