Trelew

Trelew, the town of Lewis in Welsh, grew from 1886 around the railway that connected the Welsh farming colony in the Chubut valley to the coast, and it is now the working centre of the region, plainer than its neighbours and less concerned with charm. Its reason for a visit is the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio, one of the major dinosaur museums in South America, built around specimens from Patagonian digs and displaying, among much else, a cast of the titanosaur Patagotitan, a creature of over thirty metres whose bones, first found on a Chubut ranch in 2010, were announced in 2014. The museum's laboratories are visible from the galleries. The Museo Pueblo de Luis covers Welsh settlement, and the old railway buildings survive downtown.

History

The leaders of the Welsh settlement, Love Jones-Parry and Lewis Jones, dealt with the Argentine government in the early 1860s, and the town is named after Jones, tre meaning town in Welsh and Lew short for Lewis. It was established on 20 October 1886 as the start of the Central Chubut Railway to Puerto Madryn, after railway equipment and 400 settlers arrived on the steamer Vesta that July; the line opened in 1888, was extended to Gaiman, Dolavon and Las Plumas, and closed in 1961 (Wikipedia, Trelew).

What you'll find

• The palaeontology museum - Patagonian dinosaurs including the vast Patagotitan cast.
• The visible laboratories - preparation work seen from the galleries.
• The settlement museum - Welsh colony history in the old station.
• The railway-era centre - surviving brick buildings from the town's founding.

When to go

Year-round, since the main attraction is indoors; the museum closes on some holidays and opens shorter hours in winter. Summer is hot and windy outside. Combine with the Welsh villages up the valley on the same day.

Things to know

The city itself has little charm and most visitors treat it as a base or a stop. Beyond the museums there is not much to fill a day. Distances to the wildlife sites are long, and a car or tour is effectively necessary.

Nearby

Gaiman and Dolavon lie west; Puerto Madryn is north and Punta Tombo south.

Key facts