Comodoro Rivadavia

Comodoro Rivadavia is the largest city in Chubut, built on the oil found here at the start of the twentieth century, and it still looks like it: a working town between the Cerro Chenque and the sea, with a museum of the oil industry and the long beach of Rada Tilly next door. It is also the southern end of the Blue Route, the four hundred and fifty kilometres of coast between here and Trelew.

For travellers it is a door rather than a destination: a flight in, and the coast north from there. The road leads to Bahía Bustamante and Camarones, to estancias that combine sheep farming and conservation, and on to Punta Tombo and the Welsh valley before reaching Puerto Madryn. Done this way, the Atlantic coast becomes a journey of four or five days instead of a single base.

The coast is at its best from October to March, when the penguins are nesting and the days are long. Wind is part of the deal all year.