Penguins are the last birds I'd want to murder...

Trelew, Welsh Patagonia. Constantly looking for signs of Wales - checked the phonebook, about fifty Joneses, sixty Williamses - maybe a little above average for Latin America. Plenty of rugby paraphernalia in shop windows, lots of dragons, streets are called things like 'Edwin Roberts' and 'Abraham Mathews'. Not as many sheep as one might expect. The town couldn't be more different to Bariloche - really industrial, pretty grey and unattractive. Generally the people seem to be doing much more work and having much less fun. We explored in a day and by teatime we'd about got the measure of Trelew - not a bad place, but not much more than that either... To be kind, it does feel very authentic - very much a blue collar, working Patagonian town and it was interesting to take that in for a while, but really it's a convenient hub for more exciting activities...

Penguin day! Using our shrewd little traveller's brains we worked out that we could avoid a tour and save some money by hiring a car to head south to a nature reserve called Punta Tombo. If our festive red Dodge Charger was a wild stallion, the little grey Fiat Uno we hired was a sleepy donkey, huffing and puffing it's way round corners and up gravel paths... That said it beared up admirably as we drove down the straight roads of the Patagonian steppe in the rain listening to some classic 80's power ballads on the radio. "Forever Hits - 99.9FM" gets the seal of approval. As the wind buffeted our little tin can car tootling along we began to realise that this may be the 'harsh Patagonia' that people had been mentioning. We got out of the car - the horrible realisation that I didn't have a jumper with me and Woody's circulation could well just be a figment of the imagination at this point. We began to freeze. Flip-flops, I love you, but you're going to destroy me...

"Growl and go" as Shackleton would say. Our hearts were immediately warmed by the sight of thousands of penguins dotted around the hillside. Penguins may well be the most heartwarming of all the world's birds. They mate for life, share equally the fishing and upbringing of the young and they like brightly coloured pebbles to decorate their wee burrows. the ones we saw - Magellanic penguins - have no fear of humans and we could get so close to them. So close, in fact, that Woody got us in trouble by commiting the cardinal sin of stepping over the white line of pebbles that indicates the path boundary. Camera stuck to face, excited by the huge amount of penguins, maybe a few wee steps over - a hop, skip and a jump maybe. Park ranger, not a happy camper. Using the classic "No entiendo", "I don't understand" routine we managed to get away with it but strangely he wanted us to delete the two photos that had been taken from the wrong side of the border. Woody: "Rudeness and dickin' about with my camera - they're the two things that'll turn me against you. Touching someone's camera? It's like touching someone's child, y'know..." Well put.

But the penguins were hilarious and great fun. So curious with their little tilting heads and ungainly waddle, it was worth the chill to see them keeping each other company together in the colony. On the return journey we stopped in the small Welsh village of Gaiman. "You are now entering Gaiman". Yep, Gaiman. Very mature. Welsh settlers with a seemingly idealistic view of what their homeland is created this village, the centre of Welsh Patagonia. For us, the gem of Gaiman (besides the name) is a place called 'El Desafio' ('The Challenge'). It's a botanic garden made entirely out of rubbish - the attention to detail is astounding. Thousands of beer cans have been painstakingly and lovingly cut into flower shapes which cover the garden. Trees made from hundreds of glass bottles. Scrap metal welded and sculpted paying tribute to a variety of things; The Argentine institute that is Boca Juniors Football Club, the Taj Mahal, about fifty different species of dinosaur, a thirty foot whale, an old Citroen 2CV covered in metal can tops, the Flintstone's car. All over the park are phrases - inspirational, funny, touching, ironic: "The man who made no mistakes, made nothing" is a favourite. The garden's creator, Joaquin Alonso, began work on the 16th of January 1984 - making the park and our very own Woody the exact same age. He has created a legacy from nothing but a single idea. He wanted to do something, and just went about doing it. Simple. The name 'The Challenge' comes from the fact that most people thought he was crazy and that he'd never realise his idea to its full potential - but he surpassed it. The park made it into the Guiness Book of records as the largest structure created entirely from recycled rubbish. Up until the age of 85, Alonso was still creating and after his death, this legacy lives on, for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, even for a couple of clueless travellers from the other side of the world. He still inspires...

Currently we're in Buenos Aires after a 15 hour midnight meat train from the quiet town of Bahia Blanca. We await a couple of familiar faces at the airport... Peace.