Thewesternprovinceblog

Hola and bore da once again from Yr Wladfa! For todays excursions we decided to visit Dolavon and Rawson. Let’s go over these then.

So firstly it was another colectivo excursion over to Dolavon, getting over here was simple enough jumping on a bus that first stopped in Gaiman then carried on over to Dolavon another 15 minutes away. We soon arrive and it’s time to look round.

I decided to do the mirador first since the bus kind of dropped me at the edge of town and this was a short walk with a decent view point but not as good as the one in Gaiman. Like in Gaiman there is a trail where you can hike to Gaiman from. I think it’s about an hour to walk but didn’t do this.

Next it was into town and there are a few small chapels like the one in Gaiman but they were not open. Walking through the centre of town there are buildingd similar to that of the ones in Gaiman including former offices of the Chubut Mercantile Company now turned into cafes and bars. 

On the other side of town can be found another old train station turned into a museum, I had a look in there though to be honest the history was more or less the same as what was shown in Gaiman. One interesting bit they did have was a the seats of the difgerent Eisteddfods held here. There are actually 4 held at different times of the year in Chubut, if I recall they are held in Trelew, Gaiman, Puerto Madryn and Trevelin. Unfortunately none of them would be happening while I was here but interesting to know.

Walking on past the train station there’s a river and a few parks, one of which had an absolutely sick mural I had to get some shots of which depicts the intermingling of the native and Welsh ways and the land itself.

Walking back to town I found myself jumping on a bus back to Trelew and after a quick stop back at the gaff I went to the bus station and jumped on a colectivo heading to Rawson.

So what is Rawson? Well it’s the provincial capital of Chubut and has this name after a man named Guillermo Rawson who was a minister in the 1860’s who helped the Welsh sailors map out the region of Chubut and set up the agreements that allowed the early colonies in 1865 to be set up. 

Unfortunately the Town didn’t quite live up to the reputation of the man it was named after. Coming in on the colectivo all I really saw was ugly government concrete buildings that looked like they were mass built in the 80’s and residential housing. Rawson also has a beach but is a desperate town called Playa Rawson and would have had to take another bus to that. From what I read online you might also see dolphins or whales from there but as it was getting late in the day I never bothered heading over there.

In Rawson itself I had a walk round for about 5 minutes then walked right back to the bus station and went back to Trelew.

The next day I moved over to Puerto Madryn though as I previously said, it is a modern city similar to Trelew so there wouldn’t be too much to see here.