Hola todos. Quick blog post for this one, after I left Trevelin it was basically 2 travel days getting across to Trelew and the main Chubut valley cities that would be the first and main Welsh settlement.
When I left Trevelin it was a 10 hour detour to a place further south called Comodoro, I spent one night there, it was okay but other than that pretty unremarkable, the next day it was a 5 hour bus ride up to Trelew.
Trelew is probably the largest city here and as such it is not like some of the towns nearby like Gaiman or Dolavon, Trelew looks more like a typical Argentinian city and has lost much of its Welsh roots however there are still things here from the colony days, mainly the old train station that has now been turned into a museum.
Trelew is bit the oldest Welsh settlement here having been founded in 1885, the oldest would be Puerto Madryn where the first settlers landed in 1865, that said it’s development was very much influenced by the original 150 settlers being eventually turned into a central railway hub inside the Chubut valley. It’s name Lewis Town (Tre-Lew) comes from Lewis Jones who was one of the leaders in the original settlers.
Another interesting point of Trelew is much like Trevelin the area around here was harsh and the early years the colonists struggled and their survival depended on cooperative and possibly sometimes shaky relationship with the local Tehuelche peoples – a native people where not much is known of them but they are seperate to the Mapuche tribes found further north. The main gathering of these tribes was around Nearby Gaiman, which is the most famous Welsh settler town here, this we will cover on the next one.
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