Parque el Desafío is the life's work of Joaquín Alonso, a retired railway worker who spent decades transforming his plot of land into an outdoor sculpture park made entirely from recycled materials: bottles, tyres, scrap metal, broken ceramics, and whatever else the Patagonian wind brought his way. The result is a colourful, chaotic, and completely earnest creation that sprawls over a considerable area and includes towers, arches, mosaics, and figures.
It has nothing to do with the Welsh heritage that brings most visitors to Gaiman, which is part of its charm. The park represents a different strand of Argentine vernacular creativity — the compulsion to build, to make something out of nothing, to leave a mark on the landscape. Alonso himself was on hand for many years to explain the work; the park is maintained by his family.