In Wales with Ivor the Engine

Patagonia is lovely, but it's just so big, there's so much to see but getting there takes ages.

So far we've made it down to an area near the town of El Bolson (the rasberry and blackberry capital of Argentina, dad - and they're in season). We were planning on doing quite a lot of hiking but that hasn't really happened for one reason or another (me being stung by a bee, rain, wrong gear....). The bottom pic is of me fording an ice cold stream on one of the walks we did do. I just liked the trunk on the fire engine.

Being Owens, we felt obliged to visit the Welsh village of Trevelin. It wasn't really Welsh at all, everyone spoke spanish. But all the roads were Evans this and Williams that. Sadly there was no Avenida Owen. It turns out that 3 Owens were among the original settlers, but they were a mum and dad and daughter, so the name died out. Obviously not our branch of the family.

Continuing the Welsh theme we went for a trip on Ivor the engine today. It was the old patagonian express train. Its a steam train that they've managed to keep running. It was brilliant. In true South American style there were no health hand safety restrictictions. You could climb into the drivers cab, and stand right by the furnace and pretend to drive it. You could hang off the side steps while it was moving, even stand on the track to take a picture as it was coming towards you (slowly admittedly). It was like a giant toy.