Hotel Touring Club, Trelew

After camping in Puerto Madryn, we decided to treat ourselves to real beds and hot showers while we visited the Patagonian towns of Trelew and Gaiman. We booked a room in the Hotel Touring Club, a historic hotel in Trelew that once served as a hideout for Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place while they were travelling incognito in Argentina.


Both the bar and the hotel at the Touring Club retain an appealing historical atmosphere, from the grand faux marble bannisters in the lobby, to the hundreds of dusty bottles behind the bar, to the ancient and untiring owner who spent eighteen hour days behind the bar, and who looked like she had served Cassidy herself when he made his stop in Trelew. The bar service was classy too. We had drinks there one night: Nate ordered a martini, and the white-coated waiter presented him with one empty glass, one bowl of ice with tongs, one spritzer of seltzer, and an entire unopened bottle of vermouth. He grinned at us as he placed them on the table and said, "Help yourself! One, two, three drinks, as many as you like." Not exactly a martini, but an amusing substitute.