Buenos Aires continued

George who knew so much

     After walking the city neighborhoods we ventured out to the island city of Tigre by train, accompanied by George an American/ Argentine, who found us in the Recoleta cemetery and has been very helpful in many a way since with info and ideas. He booked us a tango show, but about that adventure a bit later.

train interior on a quiet day

     We boarded a train that was looking dilapidated and in need of paint, but we found it pleasantly air conditioned. The one hour train trip would have cost 6 pesos per return ticket, but as George mentioned because he uses a preloaded government issued card the cost was now only 3.6 pesos. (or 21 US cents). He intimated that the government pushed this discount system, because in that way the government could trace movements of the people (the big brother watching you scenario).
     In Buenos Aires pedestrians are the least protected class of all the traffic categories, so crossing a road is as dangerous as roaming the forest during hunting season. But when we arrived in Tigre 35 km away from BA, we found that pedestrians here are the top category, put a foot off the walkway onto the street and cars come to a screeching halt.      
     We were told that the city was so safe, compliments of the very popular mayor, that a kind of housing boom has occurred in Tigre, where the best schools are found in the country and where the city is one big wifi free zone all over town.
     The lure of Tigre for tourists are the "Islas" at the confluence of 5 rivers coming from the pampas into the Rio de la Plata, the BA estuary into the ocean, creating a silt plateau of thousands of little islands, dotted with modest weekend homes to mansions occupied by people like Madonna.

gas station for boats

water ambulance

grocery boat

jump on board for school

     This maze of 250 sq km's spider webbed waterways, hosts schools and rowing clubs, union vacation complexes, churches and boat ambulances and water taxis as well as garbage collection barges and grocery boats that ply the waters surrounding this community of "isolationists". 

restaurant on an island

     Tigre gets its name from being the hunting grounds of jaguars in the early days. It is the source of timber. It is also a fruit port as many orchards were or are found on the islands.
     The first habitation of the islands occurred when wealthy Buenos Aires residents or portenos fled the city during an outbreak of yellow fever in 1877.

cane canapes

     We had a 2 hour water taxi ride, that George organized seeking out very narrow water inlets with a few feet of depths for our boat to traverse, where cane plants made a canapé of shadows for us to glide under. Eels, otters and 

quiet shallow waters with eels galore

beavers habitat these waters and silence is omnipotent.
     We had an all you can eat buffet in the casino for $13 each and saw again first hand, how the elderly waste their pensions on slot machines owned by the politicos in this country of graft and greed.

accordion and viola

these did not need high splits

     You cannot visit Buenos Aires without seeing a Tango show. Tango originated here in the late 1900's with accordion and nostalgic songs, a repetitive beat, a strong 2 by 4 rhythm almost flamenco styled, with dancers in a chest to chest embrace in high speed, knees brushing each other as they throw up their legs. Women have high split dresses so that they can go places with their legs that almost seem impossible.

fast and furious

     We were collected from our respective hotels or homes and brought back afterwards. We were fed a three course acceptable dinner, while watching a film on the history of tango and its unchallenged master singer Carlos Gardel. When he died in a plane crash in the late 1920's, women, who never met him, all over Latin America committed suicide.


you can see we arrived
early at the wine club

     Since wine is the other notable element of Argentina, we visited a wine tasting event hosted by a wine club, whose owners hoped to ship us some cases of wine as a result of a very informative lecture and wine sipping sessions with paired foods.
Malbec is well known around the world. We learned also to appreciate white wine by the name of Torrontes and got to hear about the different wine regions.
     Meeting some other tourists at our table was a pleasant extra, allowing the sharing of stories and eventually the sharing of emails. All in all we will remember BA fondly.