Puerto Madryn

The coast of the Golfo Nuevo was Tehuelche land when, on 28 July 1865, about 150 Welsh emigrants came ashore from the clipper Mimosa. They named the natural harbour Porth Madryn after Sir Love Jones-Parry, a promoter of the colony who had scouted the coast two years earlier and whose estate in Wales was called Madryn. The bay offered shelter but little water or farmland, and the settlers soon moved south to the valley of the Chubut River, where they dug irrigation ditches for their first crops and founded the towns of the Welsh valley.

The harbour came into its own with the Central Chubut Railway, built by Welsh, Spanish and Italian workers in the late 1880s to carry the valley's produce from Trelew to the port. Puerto Madryn remained a small port town for decades; the census of 1980 counted about 20,000 people.

Growth came with industry and nature. The Aluar aluminium smelter opened in 1974, chosen for the port's access to the sea, and fishing expanded. In June 1982, at the end of the Falklands/Malvinas War, the British ships Canberra and Norland brought Argentine prisoners of war home to Puerto Madryn. The listing of Península Valdés as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 helped turn the city into one of the main tourist centres of Patagonia.

The Welsh beginnings are the city's founding story. The anniversary of the landing is marked every 28 July, a museum tells the settlers' story, and Puerto Madryn is twinned with Nefyn on the Llŷn Peninsula in north Wales. When the Wales rugby team toured Argentina in 2006, the first Test was played here. Italian and Spanish immigrants followed the Welsh, and today the Bolivian community makes up a notable share of the population.

The sea shapes the city's identity in other ways. Puerto Madryn calls itself Argentina's national diving capital, the opening of the whale season each June is a civic event, and the clear, calm waters of the gulf draw divers and swimmers in summer. Fishers are celebrated in a festival of their own.

Sport is followed closely: Deportivo Madryn has played football in the Primera Nacional, the second tier, since winning promotion in 2021, Guillermo Brown is the other local club, and Deportivo Puerto Madryn has a basketball team in the Liga Nacional.

About 100,000 people lived in Puerto Madryn at the 2022 census, making it the third city of Chubut after Comodoro Rivadavia and Trelew. The population grew fivefold between 1980 and 2022, and the municipality now includes outlying neighbourhoods such as El Doradillo along the coast to the north.

The economy has three pillars: the industrial park, led by the aluminium smelter; fishing; and tourism. The Almirante Storni pier serves the smelter, while the older Piedrabuena pier, once for fishing boats, now receives cruise ships. Residents have voiced concern about the environmental impact of proposed new heavy industry, in a city that has made its name as a destination for nature tourism.

Life follows the seasons of the gulf. From June the whale tours fill the hotels, in December and January the beach and seafront are crowded with holidaymakers from across Argentina, and in the quieter months the city settles back into its routine of work at the plant, the port and the offices. The long seafront promenade is where people walk, run, cycle and drink mate in the evenings.

Seafood from the Golfo Nuevo and the Chubut coast is the heart of the local table. Restaurants along the bay serve fish such as hake, along with mussels, squid and prawns, grilled, fried or in stews, and seafood is the usual choice for a meal with a view of the water.

Like the rest of Patagonia, the city also eats meat in quantity. Cordero patagónico, Patagonian lamb, is roasted al asador on an iron cross beside an open fire, and the grill restaurants serve it with Argentine beef cuts, chorizo and chimichurri. Empanadas, milanesas and pizza fill the gaps in the everyday diet.

The Welsh heritage lives on most strongly at the tea table. In Gaiman, in the lower Chubut valley beyond Trelew, tea houses serve afternoon tea with bread, butter and jam, scones and torta galesa, a dark, dense fruit cake. In the city, mate is drunk at all hours, and the calafate berry of the steppe turns up in jams and ice cream.