Welsh cakes and rugby in the Welsh valleys

It was the longest detour we´ve ever made for a Welsh Cake, but it was definitely worth it. From Bariloche we hopped on a night bus to Trelew, a small and rather unimposing town in eastern Patagonia where it´s all about Wales. Welsh flags flutter in the breeze and the ubiquitous dragon snarls on the front of every tourist brochure in sight. The Welsh, according to the tourist literature, ´fleeing persecution by the Englísh´, arrived on these shores in 1865 and went about turning rocks to riches in the dry, dusty valley that snakes inland from Trelew.

We headed to the teeny town of Gaiman where we checked into Plas-y-Coed, a quaint bed and breakfast adorned with framed tea towels of bara brith recipes and Welsh castles. We had a fantastic afternoon wandering around the town´s museums and original houses and chatting to Welsh decendents, most of whom spoke Spanish and Welsh but no English. The highlight of the afternoon was a meeting with Teigai Roberts a beautiful elderly lady with snow-white hair and twinkling blue eyes who worked at the town museum. We began chatting to her in Spanish but when she realised we spoke English we switched languages and she broke out with a perfect Welsh accent, sounding every bit like one of our grandmothers. We were dumbstruck, it was so surreal. She is the grandaughter of one of the original settlers has lived all her life in Argentina, but speaks fluent Welsh and learned English from people who were born in Wales.

She was a fascinating lady and it was difficult to drag ourselves away for the obligatory Gaiman pastime of a ´Té de Gales´ in one of the many tea houses. Now, we´re not really sure afternoon tea is really a Welsh tradition in Wales itself, but who were we to complain when a mountain of cakes arrived on the table, complete with a tea-cosy clad teapot in a room full of yet more pictorial tea towels and love spoons.

Our brief foray into the Welsh valleys was topped off when we managed to watch the first game of the six nations in an amazing bar, once frequented by Butch Cassidy et al and seemingly untouched since then, where the owner agreed to put the match on for us. Mike was beaming like a cheshire cat as he tucked into a lomito and a dark beer and watched Wales slowly plough Scotland into the mud.