Tigre

Tigre lies north of Buenos Aires in the delta of the Rio Parana.  Imagine an enormous silty river becoming so wide at the mouth that the waters slow and deposit silt forming thousands of small islands braided by large and small channels of water.  Tigre lies at the edge and is the embarkation point to reach the many islands.

narrow waterway on Tres Bocas

House on Tres Bocas island

We took two trains to get to Tigre.  Trains tend to be very inexpensive to travel on in Argentina, and they show their wear.  The Mitre line crawled out of Retiro station and made its way slowly through the huge railyard  and eventually out into the leafy suburbs.  At the Mitre stop we walked through the station to the Train de la Costa station.  Suddenly the station has decent restrooms, clean floors, and benches in the waiting area, but the train fare is 20 pesos instead of 3 pesos.  Go figure.  Anyway, the Tren de la Costa is a nicer train, but it doesn't really save any time in getting to Tigre.  You do get glimpses of the River along the way.

Silvia Moore, a travel agent we met here 4 years ago whose brother-in-law is my stepdad's college friend's wife's brother (or something like that!), lives in Tigre, and she met us at the Estacion Fluvial where you can catch boats out to the islands.  There are lancha colectivos (like a bus), water taxis, and tour boats.  We took an Interislena lancha out to the island of Tres Bocas.  Lots of weekend houses, guest houses and some full-time residences are built on the islands.  Although Silvia said the water is pretty polluted, we did see lots of people swimming in roped off areas.  Often the buildings are built on stilts to accommodate occasional floods.  Everything, groceries, lumber, water, has to be brought in by boat, but many of the islands do have electricity.

You let the boat operator know where you want to get off, or you wave them down to pick you up from a dock along the river.  We disembarked and decided to walk some first, following a path along one of the narrow waterways until it reached a swampy end, then turned back, took a bridge over the waterway, and walked back along the other side to El Hornero restaurant.  All the seating is in a shady courtyard, shaded by a huge sweetgum tree among others.  From the eclectic menu we all ended up ordering chicken crepes with tomato sauce, thinking it would be a light lunch.  The crepes were huge though, defeating our best intentions.

There was surprisingly little wildlife around.  I expected to see lots of water birds but just saw some cormorants hanging out near town.  Many of the plants planted around the houses are introduced ornamental plants.  The small undeveloped area we walked through was dense with shrubs and small trees and the wetlands were filled with a type of grass or a rush usually.  Speed limits on the river are not enforced and the waves generated can be pretty big.  Many of the shorelines have retaining walls or rip rap to slow erosion.  Maybe you have to go out to the more isolated islands for wildlife viewing.

Grocery  boats

Boat carrying goods upriver

Rowing statue with a rowing club in the background

Sylvan and Jake at the Estacion Fluvial in Tigre

Abandoned boats with the Amusement Park in the background

Back at the dock, there were several groups waiting for a return boat, which eventually showed up about a half hour later.  In Tigre after a stop for expresso at the waterfront gas station, we walked along the waterfront admiring the elaborate Rowing Club buildings.  Tigre has a large number of apparently pretty well-off rowing clubs that got started around the turn of the century.  Silvia also drove us around a little more of Tigre before dropping us at the Mercado de Frutas late afternoon.  We strolled through the market which features a lot more furniture and homewares stalls than it does fruit stalls at this point.  It is probably a really happening place on weekends and was relatively busy even mid-week.  We then walked up to the big train station and caught the regular train (the Tigre line) back into town, fortunately getting a seat for the 50 minute ride.  The Tigre line was in moderately better shape than the Mitre line, featuring air conditioning and a smoother ride.

Definitely worth a visit if you're in B.A.!