Colm :  We´re going to go spend a night in Gaiman
Hostel guy :  Oh, are you Welsh?
Colm :  No
Hostel guy : Oh
 …Long Pause…
Hostel guy : Ok then.

During our stay in Puerto Madryn (to see the awesome Whales) we decided to spend a night in nearby Gaiman, where apparently only Welsh people venture. It´s a small town in Patagonia* where a lot of Welsh settlers arrived over to set up a kind of Gaeltacht where they could preserve their language and traditions. Today it is famous for its Welsh tea houses – you can get afternoon tea with a huge amount of cakey things. We were lucky enough to stay in a room above one of the tea houses (Ty Gwyn) so we got a breakfast of tea, toast, scones, and four types of cake. This was the best breakfast ever, although I suspect the cream cake has probably cut my life span by about five years. We noted when we were signing the register that we were the only non Welsh people staying there – lots of Jones and Davies.

After the breakfast we went to a nearby paleontological park, which was also awesome. It´s less the fossils that make it interesting and more the landscape – you just wander out into a deserty landscape, and follow a path to some nearby hills. The landscape very barren and must have been terrifying for the original settlers when they arrived planning to farm. There were no guides and aside from some hawks, sheep** and a very curious grey fox we had the park to ourselves. The fox was incredibly tame, and seemed to be a bit of a poser so we got some nice pictures.

We had lunch in a small restaurant in town – there were six tables, when we walked in the occupants of five of them turned to look at us. We sat at the vacant sixth table, and proceeded to order. When we had trouble with our Spanish the waiter offered to speak Welsh. We struggled on with the Spanish, and managed to order the most delicious meal we have had in Argentina. I had Patagonian lamb, which beat the famous Argentine steak hands down, and Sarah had pasta which she claims was the nicest she has ever had (despite having lived in Italy for ages). So yey for the small restaurant which on further inspection seemed to just be someone´s front room.