Tigre Tour

This morning, I (just barely) left Buenos Aires to go on a booked, almost five-and-a-half-hour tour of nearby Tigre.

This is probably going to end up being a short post. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy my morning. It’s just that I can’t think of many details that might be even vaguely interesting. That’s never stopped me before, but I’m behind on my journal posting at the moment. I have another one to write today, and I’m tired.

I would pad this entry, but there are only so many “very”s I can put before “pleasant,” “relaxing,” and “enjoyable” before my very, very few regular readers would find that this to be even too boring for them to endure. If that were to happen, they might surf away and never come back. I very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much don’t want to lose them. If I did, I’d just be talking to myself here, and I already do enough of that offline.

The tour started with a minibus picking me up at my hotel a little after nine in the morning. It had already made a couple of other stops and had a couple more stops to make after mine before heading out of the city. After leaving Buenos Aires, it then took about half an hour on expressways to get to Tigre.

During that time, the guide, Leandro, gave a brief commentary about the area. (Leandro suggested we call him Leo, pronounced more like “lay-oh” than how we in the Anglophone world would normally pronounce Leo.)

Leo told us that Buenos Aires is the largest city in Argentina and the second-largest city in South America. The largest is São Paulo, Brazil. I didn’t know that.

He gave us the numbers, which I forget—you can look them up if you’re interested—but the difference in population between the first and second largest most populous city in South America must be huge because, according to Leo, the population of the greater metropolitan area of São Paulo isn’t all that much less than the total population of Argentina.

Leo also told us that the Rio de la Plata, the major river that runs beside Buenos Aires and forms the border between Argentina and Uruguay, is the widest river in the world. At its widest point, it’s 220 kilometres (140 miles) wide. Leo said that people see it and think it must be the Atlantic Ocean because they can’t see the other side. (The Atlantic is just east of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata.)

That wasn’t all Leo told us, but I forgot most of the other stuff.

One thing I do remember is that, these days, most of Tigre’s economy is based on tourism. On the road into the centre of town, the city planted the flags of every country in the world beside the winding road into town. (I think it’s winding simply as a traffic-calming measure. I couldn’t see any other reason for it to twist.)

I couldn’t figure out what order they used for the placing of the flags, perhaps alphabetically using the Spanish names of the countries, i.e., names I don’t know. However, considering that the current president of the United States wants to take over Canada, I was pleased to see that, despite it being closer than if they were arranged alphabetically by English language names, they placed the Canadian flag a respectable distance away from the U.S. flag. (Vive le Canada!)

Another thing I remember is that Tigre is the rowing capital of Argentina. Several rowing clubs, including at least one international one, have clubhouses there.

Oh, wow. I just remembered something else. Sometimes I amaze myself.

Tigre is the Spanish word for tiger. Back when the Spanish conquistadors arrived, the indigenous people related a myth about an animal that had eaten a lot of people. When they described it, the conquistadors thought it sounded like a tiger, so they called the town Tigre.

But tigers don’t exist in South America. There is an animal that’s now close to extinction in Argentina. I forget what it’s called, but it’s somewhat similar to a tiger, and that may be what the indigenous people were referring to. According to Leo, the only place where it still exists in Argentina is near Iguazu Falls. Guess where I’m going to later in this trip. Great. Just what I need to make me feel comfortable. An animal that eats people.

The Tigre tour began with a boat ride that lasted a bit over an hour, started on the Tigre River, and quickly proceeded into the Tigre Delta before returning.

Tigre Boat Ride

The boat had two decks; the lower one was glass-enclosed. The upper deck had a canopy that covered almost all of the deck.

The weather this morning was almost perfect. There was not a cloud in the sky. The temperature was a little on the warm side, but well back of unbearably hot. The canopy provided some welcome shade.

The upper deck held, I’m guessing, about 50 people.

I don’t know how many people the lower deck can accommodate. Probably the same. There was a toilet or two down there, but the pilot’s cabin was upstairs. The two probably balanced each other out. I don’t know. I didn’t go down there. On such a perfect day, I don’t imagine many people did. (The boat was run by a different company. There were considerably more people on the boat than just those on our tour. So I don’t know how many in total were on the cruise.)

The upper deck seats were mostly on two rows of back-to-back benches that ran down the centre of the boat, facing out.

A few announcements asked us to remain seated during the cruise. Apart from the short piece out and then back into the Tigre River, it was a circular cruise. So my pictures are mostly from my side of the boat, without us turning around for me to be able to see what was on the other side. I did once stand up, turn around, and take a picture. You’ll recognize it because the canopy fringe is visible in the picture.

The cruise has a recorded commentary that played mostly during the first part of the voyage. It said everything in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

The Tigre Delta is quite amazing. It’s more solid land, built up from sediment over the centuries, than it is water. Channels, creeks, and rivers separate the myriad islands.

Thousands of people live on the islands. Many of their homes are built on stilts or on artificially created rises of land to protect them from the frequent floods.

The homes vary from little more than somewhat rundown shacks to large, modern edifices.

There are no roads onto or off of any of the delta islands. To get on or off the islands you need a boat. In fact, pretty much everything there requires a boat.

There are some variety stores on some of the islands, but if there isn’t one on the island you live on you need a boat.

In addition to all of the property owners’ boats, there are taxi, ambulance, and garbage boats.

Most people do their food shopping by going into town or the city or waiting for the supermarket ship. But there are so many islands that I don’t imagine the supermarket ship could afford to visit them all.

What’s more, if the term “ship” rather than “boat” is accurate, there are probably some islands it can’t get to. At one point, the recorded commentary said the water was so shallow In the channel we were in that they’d have to bypass that part of the cruise if the water level dropped at all because the boat would run aground.

There is at least one school and one church on one of the islands. I don’t know if there are more, but there are certainly far less than one per island.

I have no use for either a school or a church, but I don’t think I could live such an isolated life without being driven stark, raving mad. Then again, that wouldn’t be a very long journey to drive.

All that being said, the Tigre Delta is gorgeous. All of the homes have large yards with lots of trees and other greenery. Plus, there’s plenty of similarly lush green space between the homes. And the small wooden piers at all of the properties are charming.

There’s a fair bit of boat traffic on the waterways, but the lack of land vehicles makes for a peaceful environment.

After the cruise, back on the bus, Leo said that there used to be more people living on the delta. There was a lot of immigration to Argentina in the 19th century. Many of the immigrants moved to the delta. But many people later moved to the city. I forget the numbers he provided, but at one time there were a few tens of thousands of people living there, now there are a few thousand.

But there are several Airbnbs that you can rent on the Tigre Delta islands. Don’t ask me how you find and get to the island you rented on. I imagine the owner picks you up somewhere on the mainland and takes you there in their boat, but I don’t know.

Tigre

After leaving the cruise, the tour made two stops in Tigre. The first was at Puerto de Frutos.

Puerto de Fritos used to be, as the name hints at, even to an Anglo, a port for fruit. I’m not sure if the produce was brought here from local farms for shipping elsewhere, or if the fruit was shipped in for local distribution. But that’s not particularly relevant now. It’s no longer a port of any kind.

Now it’s a market. Buildings that run along the centre of the three piers are carved up into small shops. Today is a Tuesday and it was quiet, with a few stores not bothering to open, but Leo said that it’s hopping on weekends with people flooding in from Buenos Aires to join the locals.

Leo set us free for 45 minutes to explore Puerto de Frutos on our own.

This is not a flea market. Everything looked new. The wares I saw for sale included furniture, wicker baskets, housewares, clothes, knickknacks and, yes, one store sold fruit. And, incongruously, one store sold what I think were lawn ornaments in the shape of Buddha and other similar religious figures.

Our next stop was at a gracious building I saw on the cruise. At one time, it was a hotel and casino. Now it’s an art gallery (closed today) with a short, pleasant park out front along the river. The bus left us off at one end of the park. Together, we slowly strolled its length, stopping for pictures at the 3D “Tigre” sign, and the bus picked us up at the other end. We then headed back into the city and I ended my extended morning activities.

Huh. This ended up being a much longer post than I expected. Regular readers know that happens to me a lot. I very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much hate it when I unexpectedly ramble on like that. Is anyone still with me?

See you in this afternoon’s post. Or not.