Tigre, Argentina – River Port on the Delta

Rosie and The Operator are leaving Buenos Aires for a few days and heading to the town of Tigre an hour by train north of the city.  Tigre is the gateway to The Parana River Delta and is a world apart from the hustle and bustle of busy, loud Buenos Aires.

Catching the train from Retiro Station to Tigre was so much easier than we thought it would be.   We loaded our SUBTE travel card (that our apartment had for our use) with credit at a kiosk in the station then swiped it through the turn style of the platform of the train we wanted to catch.  The trains to Tigre ran every fifteen minutes so we did not feel rushed and could take our time sussing everything out.

The trains were spotless and hawkers roamed the isles selling coffee, breakfast buns and gum….then, 10 seconds before the train left the station they deftly stepped out the doors back onto the platform, it was impressive, they had their exits timed to perfection.  The hour long trip to Tigre is slow with about ten stops along the way.  For the whole trip you are basically travelling through suburbs of Buenos Aires and the view is housing in various styles of opulence and decrepitude, a racecourse, a couple of polo fields, large English style manor houses that are now country clubs with twenty or so tennis courts also line the tracks.  When you arrive at Tigre station, its like you are stepping out into the middle of nowhere.

Don’t be fooled, Tigre might be a town of only 31,000 but it is the main Port town of the bustling Parana Delta which services another 100,000 people that live on the hundreds of islands surrounded by the Delta river channels.  This is a picture of our map showing the interconnected waterways of the Delta.  It gives you an idea of what Rosie means.

Tigre has been described as the Venice of South America because of its hundreds of tiny islands and waterways….Rosie would credit it with being more wild and untamed than the sophisticated name implies.  The town itself was named after the jaguars or tigres as they are locally known, that were once prevalent and hunted in the area to near extinction.  The original swampy wilderness has long since been transformed and canalized in to what are still mostly rustic settlements straight out of Indiana Jones.

The Port of Tigre was founded in 1820 after major floods in the area had destroyed other up stream settlements. The area in that time was mainly settled by Europeans who came to farm the land and the Port grew to handle the fruit and timber which arrived from the Delta and other ports upstream.

The Parana Delta is one of the biggest in the world and Rosie and The Operator are heading out tomorrow to explore its waterway on a local ferry.

We walk the quiet streets from the train station towing our suitcase on the smooth road rather than the noisy tiled footpath.  The streets are quiet and the occasional car passes us.  It seems like such a  little sleepy hollow as we arrive on the street where our apartment is located, its called the Boulevard de Tigre and this area has had a face lift over the recent years.

The surrounds still are a little tatty around the edges but that gives this area character.  Street Art surprises you when you walk past as does an old relic perfectly poised for a picture.  Trendy restaurants, cafes and bars have popped up on this wee tree lined avenue and Rosie is grateful…because about now she could do with a coffee.

Right across the road from our apartment is the Café Almacen de Flores.  It is a hippy, arty wee place right up Rosies alley and Tazzi the owner lived in Aussie for six years and joy of joys, made us the perfect flat white!  Sitting on the sheepskins, sipping her perfect brew at a table on the footpath whilst admiring the remarkable mosaic art on the side of the building and listening to the sounds of utter silence after the continual roar of Buenos Aires, was just bliss.

Ok, coffee is supped, time to explore, and we are planning to stroll along the Lujan Riverbank on the Paseo Victoria headed toward the Museum de Tigre.

Along the riverside walkway we cross the bridge and look out over the busy river port.  This is the hub of the town and small wooden ferries pull in and out with their rooftops loaded high with furniture, groceries, bikes and anything and everything you can think of that is being transported into the depths of the Delta.

Further along we pass the palatial grounds of the Buenos Aires Rowing Club….and their not so fancy launching jetty.  Rowing is pretty big here and there are rowing clubs with racks of boats on their front lawns up and down the river.

The craze kicked off in 1873 when a group of English rowers held a regatta in Tigre.  President Sarmiento attended this race and quoted ‘that he hoped our youth would follow this example’.  Six days afterward a group of Argentine and English rowing enthusiasts founded the Buenos Aires Rowing Club.

So many people wanted to take part in this new trend that more rowing clubs were formed and sailing and yachting clubs soon followed suit.

Kayaks for hire line the riverbank and brave souls solo paddle the river bouncing in the wake of the ferries that steam past very fast.  Restaurants have empty tables lining the waterways where you can imagine how beautiful it would be to while away the time here in summer.  Its mid week in Tigre, that is why it is so quiet and why some places are shut.  In the weekend this place comes alive with an influx of arrivals from Buenos Aires that come and stay for the weekend, or visit the markets for the day, emulating the trend of the 1900s where it was popular to have a grand weekend home here in Tigre.

Green parrots screech from a palm tree where they are having a fight and across the river in the overgrown wilderness peeps a couple of houses that are slowly decaying and sliding into the river.  A little further on a couple of rusty hulks have been scuttled on the riverside and are slowly turning the same brown, rusty colour of the alluvial river.

Rosie and The Operator arrive at The Museum of Art, the most iconic building in Tigre.  She is one graceful looking building and sits proudly and elegantly on the riverbank.  Rosie steps onto the grass to take a few snaps and is told off by the security guard…keep off the grass!

This building first started life as The Tigre Club in 1912 where it was a meeting place for the rich and famous.  The interior is just as delicate with a staircase made from Italian marble, Venetian mirrors and French chandeliers.  A casino also operated here until 1933 when its license was removed due to prohibition.  With theonset of the Great Depression its fortunes waned and The Club closed and sat empty for decades. In 1979 the Tigre Club was declared a National Monument, was renovated and now holds a collection of modern art.

As for this piece of modern art, (below), in the grounds…well…you decide.

During the weekend Tigre comes alive with an influx of folk from Buenos Aires.  The market opens and The Puerta de Fruta  on the waterfront is where it is based and everyone heads too.  Rosie and The Operator are only staying steps away and the noise of the comings and goings woke us up early so off we went to get an early start as well.

The old fruit wharf area is lined with shops and market stalls, outdoor tables are in the streets and the Paella is simmering. Barbeques are being prepped  and unleashing their smokey goodness into the air in preparation for the lunchtime onslaught of people.

Looking over the edge of the wharf into the brown, muddy water of the river Rosie feels a little sad there is so much rubbish backed up in this area which has the highest traffic flow of pedestrians, both local and tourists.  You think it would be scooped out everyday and kept clean…but no one seems to care…Rosie thinks they just wait for the current to move it somewhere else.

The shopping and market stalls are fantastic!  Modern and new meets handmade and recycled.  There is something for everyone here and Rosie wishes she had a shipping container rather than a suitcase!  It was so nice to casually wander around looking at this and that….and make a few purchases….

We walk past a market stall that sold secondhand books and magazines.  Rosie loved the OCD nature of the precision that went into this old mans cataloging and inventory of his stock.  Bundles of books and mags were tied together with string with a sticky note denoting the genre.

Rosie said in passing as she was browsing I wonder if he has a Time Magazine of the Moon Landing….being the 50^th Anniversay and all.  Next Minute….a bundle entitled ‘Luna’ is produced and Rosie is looking at a 1969 Spanish Annual with a full front page picture and many photographs of the moon landing which, of course, was the hottest news of the year.

The Old Man made such a fuss over the mag and was so proud he had something we ‘wanted’ that we had to buy it….The Operator handed over $135pesos = $4.75NZ….for a Spanish language magazine we couldn’t read!  But, history is history, we knew all about most of the major events in the world that made headlines that year.

It was so much fun actually looking at all of the news and gossip from 1969 and checking out the adverts…some of it was a real crack up!

Murals depicting life on the river line a small alleyway that links another part of the market.  Rosie is so looking forward to taking a river trip up into the delta tomorrow!  But first, all of these smells of the Parilla that is hanging thick in the air is making Rosie hungry.  BBQ for lunch it is!

When you order any type of BBQ it comes like this to your table, a small mini version gently sizzling the meat keeping it warm.  Ours is a mixed BBQ that has ribs, chorizo sausage, blood sausage abit of intestine that was very interesting and kind of tasted like soft pork crackling…. Not Rosies cup of tea as the texture was a little gritty….I suppose it all depends on what was in the intestine at the time….The Operator mused…Rosie spat hers out.

Later in the afternoon we went to watch the rugby….The All Blacks were up the road in Buenos Aires playing The Pumas.  The Operator had been googling where to go as in this area there are no real bars, only cafes and restaurants.  You would not believe how many people we asked on where we could go….no one seemed to know and pointed us in the direction of the family restaurants with a TV on the wall.  The Operator finally found one back out by the train station that kind of fit the bill and off we went.

Well, Rosie can say they kindly turned off the music videos playing and put the rugby on for us on the big screen. Us and two others watched the game….a lady asked us what the haka meant, we drank a couple of beers and wandered off home.  Was a little of an anti climax but mind you the crowd at the stadium in Buenos Aires didn’t look that enthused either so glad we didn’t travel back into the city for the game.

Walking home Rosie does a double take at a sports shop window…no, no, no, no, no!   The size of these spiders is immense…Rosie is looking at the shadows now imagining all types of creepy crawlies…the gloss of her holiday in this part of the world has been dulled.  Wow, said The Operator, they are impressive I wonder how you taxidermy a spider?

Tomorrow we are going to take a public transport ferry into the Delta to visit the small town of Tres Bocas as recommended by Tazzi in the coffee shop.  We cannot wait, it looks so mysterious, adventurous and a little off the beaten track, we cannot wait to head up the river for the day!