Today we planned a day trip out of Buenos Aires to the Tigre Delta, where the Paraná River ends. It is a series of canals and waterways which have now been filled with houses, hotels and restaurants only accessible by water. It’s only a 45min train journey from Buenos Aires, and we could use our Sube card, so dirt cheap.
We wanted to try the scenic route there but there were warnings we couldn’t quite understand for this line, so we caught the direct route instead. I liked that there were markings on the group where each of the tram doors line up, and people formed orderly queues behind them.
Not sure what was up with me but I COULD NOT stay awake during the train journey. I kept doing the uncomfortable nod as I jerked awake every few seconds. What I did see from the window was a different Buenos Aires, one quite a bit poorer than what we have seen before. The journey was slow and seemed to take forever.
On arrival, I got myself an energy drink called SPEED. It was pretty vile but I think it did the trick!
We got a bit lost trying to figure out what and where we needed to go. I hadn’t twigged that Tigre was not the stilted houses waterways, and that we would need a boat to see that. I knew we wanted to get on a boat, but I guess I didn’t expect to find a built up modern city area by the waters edge. There were twenty plus booths selling tickets for a tour up and down the river, but I had it in my head that I wanted to do a local ferry. Cheaper, but also you could get on and off at will. After wandering a good 10 min in the wrong direction (and 30C sun - yes, the summer seems to be incoming now!) we made it back to the start. I checked the blog I was basing my entire knowledge on - the ticket booth was IN the McDonald’s building. Ok. Eventually we found it, and “duos, Tres Bocas” later, we had two tickets.
Now what? It said “seccion 1” on the ticket, but no mention of a dock or where to go.
We wandered past a long line at Dock 2 and stopped at Dock 1. Nothing was happening here at all. We meandered back to the long line at Dock 2 and I showed the ticket to a local, who pointed in the general direction of the long line. By now it had expanded considerably, so we joined it. And waited. Probably close to an hour in this queue - later on I wandered to the front another time to ask a local about the ticket, they again pointed to the long queue so we were in the right place. We were surrounded by locals with small eskies and lots and lots of luggage - I think we hit returning home from Christmas locals.
Eventually the line started to move and before long we were at the front. “tres bocas“, we said, and we were shunted towards the first boat of three tethered together. Instead of doing a touristy tour we (well I) had opted for (us) to do it the local way. I had read the instructions in a blog and it did indeed turn out amazing - but the blog left out a few key details that would have saved us some stress! In total, return trips cost us 300 pesos, which is embarrassingly cheap.
It was really cool to see how the local do. We squeezed into the boat, and somehow the huge line managed to fit itself into the three boats. Luggage was chucked on top of the boat (which just seemed like a sure fire way to lose it) and a man got on with a TV and put it at my feet.
Soon enough we set off, and got splashed! When another boat passed it gave the occupants a good splash, which was fine as by now it was getting quite warm. Santa Rosa, we kept a look out - this Is where the blog said to get off.
On the way we saw many houses and hotels up on stilts, pier jutting out into the water, some in rather states of disrepair. Many people were swimming in the shallow water - it looked cold, judging by some of the squeals!
After about twenty minutes we arrived at Santa Rosa pier, and quite a few people got off. Santa Rosa had a few bars and restaurants on stilts over the water - just what we were looking for. I think there was a walking track inland but we were Keen to stick to the water front.
We chose one of the few restaurants, found a seat on the waters edge and grabbed a bill. Spanish of course, but google translate had a hard time of it. I wrote down what we wanted in Spanish on my phone (2 beef empanadas, 2 ham and cheese empanadas, a serve of local calamari and 2 mojitos). I wandered inside to try to order and ran into the young lady waitress. She spoke to me and I said, sorry, English! I was holding the menu and she thought I needed an English menu so she put down all the things she was holding to try to find one. I felt so bad. I kept trying to shove my phone in her face to show we had alrwdy worked out what we wanted. An older lady came out, the mother I presume and I showed her my phone - after protesting she realised I had written our order in Spanish and beckoned me to the back of the store. She wrote down my order but unfortunately they didn’t have the the calamari. I said that’s ok we will just have the rest! I wasn’t sure if she had understood my sentiment but she wandered to the kitchen so I assumed I put the order on. Back at the table, Dan and I watched many boats of different sizes go by it was beautiful. I was trying hard not to think about my empty belly, but it was getting difficult, and I was still unsure if I’d actually managed to order anything. After a little while, our mojitos and empanadas arrived and we tucked into them. They turned out to be just the right size and amount of food - and quite different from the ones we had a few nights ago. More flaky.
As we finished our mojito we noticed the ferry in the distance. We ummed and ahhed about whether to stick around but ultimately decided that we should flee while we knew we could. We paid up (3200 pesos Inc tip) and made our way along the rickety path to where we had been dropped off. There were a few people here alrwdy, so we joined the queue and in a few minutes we were back on the boat.
Returning to Tigre was interesting! The boat zigzagged across the river, backing up to piers and racing off once someone had hopped on or off. In a short while the ferry was completely full, so we drove past some piers with people. Then we would deposit people at other piers, which had let up room to collect more people. As I am a pretty stressy person, I would struggle with this system - not knowing if I would be able to get to my destination or not! We continued left and right across the river until we returned to Tigre.
Alighting the boat, we made our way to the other train station to catch the scenic route back. I stayed awake for the first leg a bit better - there was a promise of an antique market on one of the platforms but alas it was shut. The route was much prettier, but not the scenic we expected. We changed trains, and despite this one being literally icy cold, I kept falling asleep again. It didn’t go the whole way (the warnings that we had read about this morning) so all passengers had to get off and on a new train shortly after. This one took us back to Retiro.
In the station now, we made our way toward the door, but I spotted an art display and wanted a closer look. We hadn’t even looked at two before a lady bounded over and started talking to us in Spanish.
“Sorry, English!” We said, when she asked us in English where we were from. Australia, we said. She was very excitable. she then asked if we wanted to meet the artist, and before we e had time to answer she was beckoning another lady over. She asked us again “where are you from?” Australia! She has a family member living in Melbourne. The original lady made us gather for a photo while the artist explained her work. She was an architect by trade, and had painted the Buenos Aires roof tops without all the modern buildings in the city scape! The art was great. They didn’t try to make us buy anything, and we’ve since added each other on Instagram.
The walk to our accommodation was uneventful, except we ducked into the Dia to get some icecream - it had gotten so hot today! Before we could get into the pool, we had a minor pigeon problem to solve. Right in between the handles to the pool stairs lay a pigeon, facedown, quite dead. No sign of foul play, probably died of old age. Dan scooped it into a dustpan and deposited it in a plant pot. I hope it doesn’t start to smell…
Now it was straight into the pool with some red wine, and we ended the day with a swim, some pasta, wine and our ice creams.
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