{"id":2392,"date":"2016-11-23T19:01:41","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T22:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/?p=2392"},"modified":"2016-11-23T19:10:03","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T22:10:03","slug":"trip-through-chile-and-welsh-patagonia-day-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/archives\/2392","title":{"rendered":"Trip through Chile and [Welsh] Patagonia \u2013 Day 9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday 18 November, 2016;\u00a0Trelew – Vald\u00e9s Peninsula – Trelew<\/em><\/p>\n

This was to be our ‘wildlife day’, and we drove from Trelew up to the\u00a0Valdes Peninsula<\/a>, where we did see a good number of sea and land mammals (and the odd bird). But first we stopped by Puerto Madryn, the place where the Welsh Colonists first touched land.<\/p>\n

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Information screen about the landing of the Mimosa in Puerto Madryn<\/p><\/div>\n

We liked the flag! The sign says (rough translation): In 1865 when the Mimosa<\/em> arrived …\u00a0The Argentine flag -with the Welsh dragon in its centre\u2013 flew from the hill above the caves.\u00a0It had been raised by Edwyn Roberts on a flag post erected to show the place where the ship had disembarked its passengers. Although a very special flag, it was in fact the first flag bearing Argentine colours to be raised in Puerto Madryn.<\/p>\n

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Caves where some of the settlers spent their first nights in Patagonia<\/p><\/div>\n

The bay at Puerto Madryn had shallow beaches and a relatively sheltered deeper area for a ship to moor, but conditions on shore were poor for a setlement and after a few days the community moved further south to Rawson – the men on foot and the women in the boat.<\/p>\n

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Caves seen from the shore, looking at the landing area<\/p><\/div>\n

The history of the Welsh colonization is fascinating, but is mostly recorded in Welsh or Spanish. A flavour of it (in English) can be found\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Monument to the Tehuelche<\/p><\/div>\n

The Welsh soon encountered an indigenous people, the Tehuelche<\/a>, with whom they promptly established good relations and were able to trade to mutual advantage. In Madryn there are two statues, one to the Welsh people (not pictured here as the area where it stands\u00a0was under repair) and one to\u00a0the Tehuelche (above).<\/p>\n

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Flags of three nations: Argentina, Wales and the Tehuelche peoples<\/p><\/div>\n

The Welsh flag still flies over the Madryn landing site, but accompanied today by the full Argentine flag and the flag of the Tehuelches. The City of Puerto Madryn can be seen in the distance.<\/p>\n

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Arriving at Puerto Pir\u00e1mides, on the Valdes Peninsula<\/p><\/div>\n

We drove north from Madryn to the\u00a0Valdes Peninsula<\/a>, a World Heritage List site. Our first stop was Puerto Pir\u00e1mides, a charming port village with a real hippy feel.<\/p>\n

\"5a\"

You can sail out and see breeding whales from the port here<\/p><\/div>\n

Our first objective was food, and we found La\u00a0Estaci\u00f3n<\/em>, a delightful bar bistro with excellent food and very laid back staff in attendance.<\/p>\n

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La Estaci\u00f3n restaurant, Puerto Pir\u00e1mides<\/p><\/div>\n

We had an excellent lunch here, …<\/p>\n

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Inside the La Estaci\u00f3n restaurant<\/p><\/div>\n

… but our main reason for being here was the wild life. We drove to the Caleta Vald\u00e9s, on the east of the Peninsula, and found a penguin colony there:<\/p>\n

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Magellanic penguin at Caleta Vald\u00e9s<\/p><\/div>\n

The penguins seemed oblivious to human presence and just went about their daily business, which seemed to be mostly chilling.<\/p>\n

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Another penguin in relax mode …<\/p><\/div>\n

We also saw elephant seals, equally bent on doing nothing very much<\/p>\n

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Elephant seals basking in the sun<\/p><\/div>\n

Although we’re not supposed to be posting birds here, it is appropriate to include a martineta\u00a0(in English elegant crested tinamou). We saw these all along the roadsides and often in the road, their little legs scuttling to get them to safety.<\/p>\n

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Elegant crested Tinamou (Sp. martineta)<\/p><\/div>\n

The sun was setting as we drove back to Trelew, a longish drive but the trip was well worth it.<\/p>\n

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The setting sun as we left the Vald\u00e9s Peninsula<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday 18 November, 2016;\u00a0Trelew – Vald\u00e9s Peninsula – Trelew This was to be our ‘wildlife day’, and we drove from Trelew up to the\u00a0Valdes Peninsula, where we did see a good number of sea and land mammals (and the odd … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel-2","category-trip-welsh-patagonia-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2392"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2506,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions\/2506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}