Days 151 to 153 – Friday 17th to Sunday 19th February 2006
Having Jones as my surname I felt it would only be proper to visit the old Welsh communities in Patagonia. Trelew and Gaiman are about an hour south of Puerto Madryn. That wasn’t my only reason for visiting, I had heard they made a decent cup of tea – something severly lacking in Central and South America.
I didn’t plan on staying overnight, simply to have a look around the towns and have a cup of tea before heading south to Rio Gallegos and hopefully on to Ushuaia. When I arrived in Gaiman everything was shut, and so I was denied my cup of tea. With nothing to do but head back to Trelew Bus Station and wait for the bus, thats what I did.
I spent the rest of the day sitting on the bus heading south. I also spent the night on the bus. The next moring I arrived in Rio Gallegos at 10am. I tried to get straight onto a bus for Ushuaia but htere were no tickets available for two days, so I changed my plan and bought a ticket to Puerto Natales in Chile instead.
This town is basically a jumping off point for hikes in to the Torres del Paine National Park, and when I arrived I arranged and paid for a 5 day, 75km hike, starting Monday, to do the “W” circuit, around the two mountains that dominate the area.
Chile has a reputation for being a lot more expensive than other South American countries, and paying for this trip certainly brought that home to me. After forking out two weeks total budget only on accomodation and entrance fees to the park for 5 days I started to have doubts about doing the hike. Then I realised I’d probably never be in the area again and if I didn’t do the hike now I probably never would.
Sunday was basically spent running around trying to get all the stuff I needed for the trip. Having never done anything like that before I didn’t really know what to take so it took longer than it should have to get organised by I got there in the end.
