The small, relaxed port of
SAN JULIÁN makes the most convenient place to break the enormous journey between Trelew and Río Gallegos. The town, treeless and barren to look at, is rich in historical associations, due to its oddly shaped, shingle-banked
bay , which was one of the few safe anchorages along the Patagonian coast for early mariners. Sadly, there's next to no visible evidence of the town's history, though it is a good place to go on one of various
tours , including an extremely convenient trip - indeed one of the best-value tours in all Patagonia - to view the
marine life of the bay - highly recommended, especially if you're unable to visit Puerto Deseado. The penguins here live closer to human settlement than at any other site in the south, and they've been known to assert ancestral privilege, having been found walking the streets. Local radio has been known, not without irony, to put out appeals for qualified people to remove penguins from the town hall.
San Julián can rightfully claim to be the birthplace of Patagonia. In 1520, during Magellan's stay in the bay, the very first encounter occurred between the Europeans and the "giants" of this nameless land. As related by Antonio Pigafetta, the expedition's chronicler: "One day, without anyone expecting it, we saw a giant, who was on the shore of the sea, quite naked, and was dancing and leaping, and singing, and whilst singing he put sand and dust on his head & When he was before us he began to be astonished, and to be afraid, and he raised one finger on high, thinking that we came from heaven. He was so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist & The captain named this kind of people Pataghom." On Palm Sunday, April 1, 1520 Magellan celebrated the first Mass on Argentinian soil, near a site marked by a cross, down by the town's port. Magellan and Francis Drake both faced off mutinies in the bay, in moments of critical importance for their careers. Magellan exacted retribution on the ringleaders of his rebellion: one officer, Quesada, was beheaded, drawn, quartered and swung from a gibbet; and Magellan's treacherous, aristocratic second-in-command, Juan de Cartagena, was marooned on these coasts with only a troublesome priest for company. Drake beheaded the nobleman Thomas Doughty here in 1578, alongside Magellan's gibbet. Doughty, having been sentenced to death by Drake, proceeded to dine with his admiral: bizarrely, the two men drank toasts to each other and passed an evening of the utmost civility before the execution on the following morning.
Later, as part of Charles III of Spain's scheme to protect shipping routes along the Patagonian coast, Captain Antonio de Viedma founded Floridablanca , in 1780, though scurvy destroyed the colony within four years. Things turned around at the beginning of the twentieth century: sheep farming provided the impetus behind the founding of the modern port, and the petroleum industry contributed to the town's development. Although both these sectors have foundered catastrophically in recent decades, San Julián's luck has held, and the discovery of a major gold reserve at nearby Cerro Vanguardía has rescued it from recession.
One of the few traces of the past to be preserved went unnoticed for many years, right in what passes for the town's main square, until someone noticed that a paving slab he'd just walked on had been walked on before - by a dinosaur. The distinct, prehistoric prints of the sauropod (a crocodile-like reptile) were moved to the local Museo Regional on Rivadavia and Vieytes (early March to late Dec Mon-Fri 9am-1pm & 2-5pm; late Dec to early March 9am-1pm & 4-9pm; free). Regrettably, having survived mischances throughout millennia, the slab was cracked whilst being moved. The museum also houses a few relics from the Floridablanca settlement, though the scanty ruins of Floridablanca themselves, west of town, are currently off limits, since access has been denied by the new landowner. Check the latest situation with the tourist office.
