Gaiman

Gaiman was founded in 1874 by Welsh settlers who had arrived in Patagonia a decade earlier and pushed up the Chubut valley to irrigate it, and it remains the most visibly Welsh place in Argentina: brick houses and chapels, street names in Welsh, a small regional museum in the old railway station, and an annual eisteddfod at which poetry and choral singing are performed in Welsh and Spanish. Visitors mostly come for tea. Several casas de té serve the same ritual, a pot of strong tea with an overwhelming spread of bread and butter, scones, cream, jams and cakes including the dark, dense torta negra galesa, in front rooms furnished as they were a century ago.

Highlights

• The tea houses - Welsh tea served with a large spread and black cake.
• The chapels - nineteenth-century Welsh chapels still standing and in use.
• The regional museum - settler history in the old railway station.
• The irrigated valley - the green strip of poplars and farmland along the Chubut.

When to go

Year-round; tea houses open most afternoons and are busiest in summer and at weekends. The eisteddfod in spring and the youth festival bring Welsh singing and fill the village. Booking a table matters in January.

What to expect

Tea is an afternoon institution with set hours, usually opening around two or three, and the portions are enormous and expensive for what they are. The village is small and can be seen in a couple of hours. The Welsh identity is genuine but heavily packaged for visitors.

Nearby

Trelew and its dinosaur museum lie east; Dolavon and its waterwheels are further up the valley.

Key facts