Posted 24 March 2007
I know that Mary is waiting for this posting. But for her we would not be here, neither would we have discovered Futaleufu en route. Her cousin Hugh Evans was so enthusiastic about his visits to Esquel that he advised Mary to tell us about Esquel.
The area is one of those colonised by the Welsh starting in 1865. We spent a memorable morning with one of the contacts, Mrs Aira Hughes, her husband Edgar and one of her sons Eduardo, having located her house the following evening when we were too tired and too travel worn to call. Her grandfather on her mother´s side had gone to Esquel in 1881. She told us that tomorrow there was a big celebration at the Capilla Seion in town to celebrate 100 years and St David´s Day with procession, service and then a communal tea. Unfortunately we will be on route to Perito Moreno by bus at 10.45 tomorrow, having bought a ticket after much deliberation when we arrived yesterday.
Aira was unfortunately in a wheelchair as the result of a recent operation on her knee because of arthritis, not a prosthesis but a transfer of flesh from her lower leg. She was however in remarkably good spirits and made us very welcome. Her English was very good so some of the conversation was accessible by Joan and by speaking in Spanish I was able to include Edgar and Eduardo. They told us much of the early history of the Welsh who, like the rest of the world, were invited by the Argentine government to settle but not occupy the country as a foreign power.
Eduardo enthusiastically showed us his fine collection of early pre-columbian tools flint arrow heads, stone handles for slings and stone balls which the indians swung on the end of a rope to kill prey, especially quanacos (llama) and sometimes human intruders. He had found these artefacts in the mountains. When we left after more than two hours non stop talk, tea and local speciality chocolates (Esquel is famous for chocolate - so is Bariloche - if you want to start an argument!).
He took us to the station where a very narrow gauge, 75cm (30 inches). El Viejo Expreso or La Trochita, runs twice daily for the benefit of tourists. Noways it is a pseudo steam engine with a collection of passenger carriages, wooden seats for the second class, soft seats for the first class carriage and even a dining car, but in the past it was used for transporting wool the 400 km to the coast for export. We saw it fill up with water in the old style, but that is only for the sake of making look alike smoke as it is propelled by diesel these days. Perhaps fortunately there were no tickets left for the 2 pm run. So we went directly by bus to Trevelin, and on seeing two other passengers get off and dive into a restaurant Los Troncos we followed. There we had trout and a lovely glass of house Sauvignon Blanc.
We went to the nearby tourist office to pick up a map and to establish the location of Museo La Molina and El Malacara (Museo Cartref Taid) as it is known to the Welsh speakers.
Since the former was not yet open we started at La Molina, a superb municipal museum with a very wide ranging collection of exhibits, from old photographs, to artifacts of all kinds which had been used by the settlers, from the oldest typewriter in which a slider was used to rotate the golf ball head to present the correct letter with a separate button to cause it to print, to ´sunday best ´clothes as worn by the women, kitchen stove and equipment, an early hand operated washing machine, a large Fordson tractor, Stationary Steam engine, combine harvester and a truck as used in the old horse days to convoy to transport wool to the Atlantic coast for export.
We spoke at length with the enthusiastic young curator who wanted to practice his English so as to add to his fluency in Welsh. At the same time a party of four were going around. It turned out they came from near Ammanford. Later Hazel told us she had been the first Welsh teacher in the community in 1997, sponsored by the British Council and later by the Welsh assembly as well - a tradition which is continuing under Clare Whitehouse, who we did not meet. One of the men in the party told us how he had got detached from the rest in Esquel the previous evening, and seeking directions eventually asked a youngster if he could speak English, the youngster replied in Welsh, an event which brought tears to his eyes, as it did to Joan when I repeated the story to her.
We all went over to El Malacara to see a copy of the original house of John D Evans, the founder of the community who went on to build the large grain flour mill that we had just seen. The house was built in the traditional style and sited in a beautiful garden and faithfully portrayed his original home, though as he grew more prosperous and brought up 12 children he moved elsewhere.
The young curator of this museum told us in great detail the story of John Evans whilst struggling manfully and successfully with his English. Evans and three other men set out from the Welsh Atlantic coast settlement on horseback to follow the Chubut River inland in search of gold. They found and were delighted with the area bordering Chile which is not unlike Wales . On discovery it was populated only by a few Mapuche Indians (as found in Chile) and so they set off back to inform the others. Unfortunately they were attacked by the Indigenous Indians and only he escaped by virtue of an enormous leap by his horse Malacara. He eventually arranged its purchase from the Argentine government and led the Welsh back to found Esquel and Trevelin, these being part of an area of Argentine (Chubut province) which was populated by a variety of Celtic people from Wales, Ireland, Brittany and Galicia, although many English came later.
As we raced back to catch the 6pm bus to Esquel we learned that the group were staying at La Chacra with Mrs Rini Griffiths. That explained why her B&B was full when I phoned from the Information Office the previous day. We went instead to the Residential Ski (20K) which we found very helpful. That suited us both since La Chacra had Welsh speaking guests and we had the benefit of a convenient location in the centre of town. The hotel immediately directed me to a shoe repairer Dieguito on 25 de Mayo, just around the corner, where they repaired crucial support stitching on my rucksack while we waited, for just 1K. It was the sort of workshop almost impossible to find in present day Britain, where in consequence we throw away far too much.
One further coincidence. As we made our way back to the hotel we met a Peruvian who was selling Mandalas on the street. This is a construction made entirely of wire formed into circles. It is an amazingly versatile thing which can be transformed into a huge number of different shapes as a help to meditation. We bought one for old times sake, having first come across them in Kathmandu 20 years ago and buying several as stocking fillers for our children. He had first come across them whilst traveling in Brazil and now made them himself and provided customers with an instruction leaflet giving the sequence of the forms. The very next day we saw him at the bus station, he greeted me with `Hello Brian´, having remembered my name from our brief conversation.
So ends this posting as we head for the restaurant Parrilla next to the hotel where we shall probably go for the enormous Mixed BBQ for two, beef, sausages, sweetbreads, tripe etc as befits this land of meat.
I know that Mary is waiting for this posting. But for her we would not be here, neither would we have discovered Futaleufu en route. Her cousin Hugh Evans was so enthusiastic about his visits to Esquel that he advised Mary to tell us about Esquel.
The area is one of those colonised by the Welsh starting in 1865. We spent a memorable morning with one of the contacts, Mrs Aira Hughes, her husband Edgar and one of her sons Eduardo, having located her house the following evening when we were too tired and too travel worn to call. Her grandfather on her mother´s side had gone to Esquel in 1881. She told us that tomorrow there was a big celebration at the Capilla Seion in town to celebrate 100 years and St David´s Day with procession, service and then a communal tea. Unfortunately we will be on route to Perito Moreno by bus at 10.45 tomorrow, having bought a ticket after much deliberation when we arrived yesterday.
 |
| EDGAR and AIRA HUGHES, with SON EDUARDO |
Eduardo enthusiastically showed us his fine collection of early pre-columbian tools flint arrow heads, stone handles for slings and stone balls which the indians swung on the end of a rope to kill prey, especially quanacos (llama) and sometimes human intruders. He had found these artefacts in the mountains. When we left after more than two hours non stop talk, tea and local speciality chocolates (Esquel is famous for chocolate - so is Bariloche - if you want to start an argument!).
He took us to the station where a very narrow gauge, 75cm (30 inches). El Viejo Expreso or La Trochita, runs twice daily for the benefit of tourists. Noways it is a pseudo steam engine with a collection of passenger carriages, wooden seats for the second class, soft seats for the first class carriage and even a dining car, but in the past it was used for transporting wool the 400 km to the coast for export. We saw it fill up with water in the old style, but that is only for the sake of making look alike smoke as it is propelled by diesel these days. Perhaps fortunately there were no tickets left for the 2 pm run. So we went directly by bus to Trevelin, and on seeing two other passengers get off and dive into a restaurant Los Troncos we followed. There we had trout and a lovely glass of house Sauvignon Blanc.
We went to the nearby tourist office to pick up a map and to establish the location of Museo La Molina and El Malacara (Museo Cartref Taid) as it is known to the Welsh speakers.
We spoke at length with the enthusiastic young curator who wanted to practice his English so as to add to his fluency in Welsh. At the same time a party of four were going around. It turned out they came from near Ammanford. Later Hazel told us she had been the first Welsh teacher in the community in 1997, sponsored by the British Council and later by the Welsh assembly as well - a tradition which is continuing under Clare Whitehouse, who we did not meet. One of the men in the party told us how he had got detached from the rest in Esquel the previous evening, and seeking directions eventually asked a youngster if he could speak English, the youngster replied in Welsh, an event which brought tears to his eyes, as it did to Joan when I repeated the story to her.
We all went over to El Malacara to see a copy of the original house of John D Evans, the founder of the community who went on to build the large grain flour mill that we had just seen. The house was built in the traditional style and sited in a beautiful garden and faithfully portrayed his original home, though as he grew more prosperous and brought up 12 children he moved elsewhere.
The young curator of this museum told us in great detail the story of John Evans whilst struggling manfully and successfully with his English. Evans and three other men set out from the Welsh Atlantic coast settlement on horseback to follow the Chubut River inland in search of gold. They found and were delighted with the area bordering Chile which is not unlike Wales . On discovery it was populated only by a few Mapuche Indians (as found in Chile) and so they set off back to inform the others. Unfortunately they were attacked by the Indigenous Indians and only he escaped by virtue of an enormous leap by his horse Malacara. He eventually arranged its purchase from the Argentine government and led the Welsh back to found Esquel and Trevelin, these being part of an area of Argentine (Chubut province) which was populated by a variety of Celtic people from Wales, Ireland, Brittany and Galicia, although many English came later.
As we raced back to catch the 6pm bus to Esquel we learned that the group were staying at La Chacra with Mrs Rini Griffiths. That explained why her B&B was full when I phoned from the Information Office the previous day. We went instead to the Residential Ski (20K) which we found very helpful. That suited us both since La Chacra had Welsh speaking guests and we had the benefit of a convenient location in the centre of town. The hotel immediately directed me to a shoe repairer Dieguito on 25 de Mayo, just around the corner, where they repaired crucial support stitching on my rucksack while we waited, for just 1K. It was the sort of workshop almost impossible to find in present day Britain, where in consequence we throw away far too much.
One further coincidence. As we made our way back to the hotel we met a Peruvian who was selling Mandalas on the street. This is a construction made entirely of wire formed into circles. It is an amazingly versatile thing which can be transformed into a huge number of different shapes as a help to meditation. We bought one for old times sake, having first come across them in Kathmandu 20 years ago and buying several as stocking fillers for our children. He had first come across them whilst traveling in Brazil and now made them himself and provided customers with an instruction leaflet giving the sequence of the forms. The very next day we saw him at the bus station, he greeted me with `Hello Brian´, having remembered my name from our brief conversation.
So ends this posting as we head for the restaurant Parrilla next to the hotel where we shall probably go for the enormous Mixed BBQ for two, beef, sausages, sweetbreads, tripe etc as befits this land of meat.
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