For all you hardened travellers out there, I’m going to let you in on a little secret…
Sometimes that bible of yours – your most treasured possession; the guidebook – can be wrong. So very wrong.
Strangely enough, in the event that led me to this discovery, my friend and I were relying on both a Lonely Planet and a Rough Guide. Their crime? Both advised us that we should spend at least an afternoon in the pleasant Welsh town of Gaiman with its ‘decidedly lovely cottage gardens’.
I’m half Welsh and I knew my dad would be stoked to hear I’d spent my first Chrstmas day away from home revisiting my roots. The plan was to pop into a Welsh tea house for fruitcake and freshly brewed tea. With no turkey and mice pies to be found, it sounded like a good compromise.
At least we got to meet Santa in Chile before we left
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Of course, it was Christmas day, so we weren’t sure if anywhere would be open, but a lot of places in Puerto Madryn, where we were based, were serving, and the guy on the hostel reception recommended we chance it. After all, Gaiman was such a quaint and flowery town, it would be lovely to spend the afternoon there, even without Welsh tea.
I should point out that we’d just been on a 29-hour journey involving two buses and a long wait in a station, all the way from Puerto Natales in Chile. They’d made no effort to even acknowledge Christmas on the bus, let alone open the skylight for Santa, and Christmas day was already half over when we finally rocked up at our hostel.
After showering, skyping the family and nipping out for a quick meal that turned out to be a long wait to get served a hunk of dry chicken (the chips never materialised), we only got to the bus terminal at 6pm. It was a 3-hour round trip to Gaiman, involving a bus change in nearby Trelew.
At 7:30pm, we rocked up in Gaiman. There was no bus terminal, only a shelter. We almost missed the stop completely – returning to Puerto Madryn without even disembarking. In hindsight, I wish that’s what had happened!
The first thing that became very apparent was that there was not a single place open serving Welsh teas, or food and drinks of any kind for that matter. We took a stroll down to the river. It was nothing special. For a while, we rested on a park bench, which, bizarrely, faced away from the river and towards a parked articulated lorry. My friend Bex and I turned to each other and toasted Christmas day with a chink of orange juice bottles.
But we hadn’t come all this way to sit on a park bench. It was time to explore. We wandered down some ugly streets. Sure, we saw one or two rose bushes, but when surrounded by junk and disintegrating buildings, the beauty is somewhat lost.
In the spirit of Christmas, we tried to see the funny side. I took heaps of photos as though I was having the time of my life. There’s the jumping shot in front of a warehouse…
The one of me kissing a graffiti monster…
Bex’s attempt to shelter under an inflatable mushroom…
A random penguin on someone’s roof…
And a big pile of crap in someone’s back yard….
But the highlight for me had to be when I made Bex clamber up a big mound of dusty soil and broken bits of refuse to get 360 degree views of the whole town in all its glory. Are you ready to be blown away by Gaiman’s understated beauty?
Hold your breath…
….
Ahhhh, now that’s really something.
Apparently Princess Diana went to Gaiman in 1995. I can’t imagine a more unfitting place for royalty, or for Christmas day, or for anyone trying to enjoy their travels through Argentina come to think of it.
I definitely use a bit of caution when it comes to guide books. I don’t go this far but I know people that use them as guides to places NOT TO GO. Thanks for the warning and if given the opportunity I will avoid Gaiman.
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Yeah, I know people who do that too. I guess it’s a good way to keep your distance from too many travelers and perhaps have a more authentic local experience and get off the beaten track. I have to say though, aside from this one slip up, I couldn’t have lived without my Rough Guide.
LoL! I think that graffiti monster is Yoda! Know your sci-fi! :P
I’ve been burnt by guide books as well but even some places that people love are a miss for me. It’s all about your style.
Thought he looked familiar ;)
Yeah, it must be hard to write a guidebook to cater to everyone’s tastes. I got pretty good at being able to tell which places would be for me, but I just don’t understand the hype about Gaiman. It wasn’t just the guidebook either. The hostel staff raved about it too!
I don’t know what you are talking about Ari… it was my favourite place in Argentina.
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Maybe we should make it an annual thing?
Hahaha. You don’t look impressed in that last picture! Epic!
Becki | BackpackerBecki recently posted..Discovering Berlin’s Secret Underground
It’s a Christmas day I’ll never forget!
Yeah just another reason I don’t use guidebooks, for long-term travel it is much better to just get recommendations on the road.
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Yeah. I can see that logic. I like to read the guidebook for an overview and then ask around. I find a bit of background research helps me retain the information my fellow travellers are giving me.
Good job exposing this. My “favorite” Lonely Planet fail is the East Africa guidebook that advises people if they think they’ve been exposed to HIV, to patiently wait 3 months and then go to the doctor to get tested. Hello!? That’s horrible advice! They have PEP drugs that can save your life if taken quickly. Go straight to a doctor!
They need to update those books a little more frequently.
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That is a really bad fail! I can’t believe that was ever sound advice! At least there’s no health issue attached to visiting Gaiman – unless you count depression…! ;)
I think this review is unfair. The guidebooks I have read all make clear that the tea houses are the town’s main attraction. It’s unrealistic to expect tea houses (or anything) to be open in a small rural Argentine town on Christmas Day, and if you were unsure you could have phoned ahead, or asked your hostel receptionist to do so for you.
Thanks for your comment Rhys. I do accept that it would have been unlikely for the tea houses to have been open on Christmas Day. However, we did ask at our accommodation, as well as around town, and the information we were given was that they would be open. Since there were a lot of places open in Puerto Madryn, we decided this information was likely to be reliable. In addition, we were informed (by locals and our guidebook) that, regardless of whether or not they were open, it was a lovely place to walk around. In my opinion, there was nothing there to warrant a visit aside from the tea houses, which unfortunately did turn out to be closed. You may disagree – or it may have improved since 2012 – but it was quite unattractive when we visited, which is why I wrote a negative review.