Tigre

Tigre shouldn’t mean tiger, it should mean “place of stark contrast to surrounding area”.

To go there, you hop a train from Retiro station at the north end of downtown in Buenos Aires. It is a 50 min ride and for some insane reason, only costs 1 peso each. It’s an inadequate fee for an air-conditioned spacious train. But in my experience everywhere in the world except English speaking countries have public transit systems are just that, public and therefore publicly funded. Nominal fees apply.

We purchased our first BA Herald. An English paper that is available at all news stands. Apparently at one time there were as many as seven English newspapers. A sign of how things change. The eventual decline of the British due to turbulence in argentine politics and economy followed by war in the Falkland Islands has reduced English presence to just a pequena (small) amount.




Tigre is built on a large delta, an example of which is in the picutre here, and is the oaisis for local cottage faring Buenos Airians. This picture doesn't relaly show the volume of canals that exist at Tigre but gives you the right idea.



The place is very clean and well kept compared to it’s adjacent city. The canal running through town is picturesque and reminded us of a larger version of Henley on Thames in England.



There were boats for tourists to take a canal tour and many smaller boats for individuals. We took a boat ride through the canals to discover that there were all sorts of rowing clubs and resorts and cottages on the water.







The pace was teeming even on a “holiday” (nothing was open in BA even the McDonalds were closed). There was even a theme park that was the size of the Stampede midway. It was huge and every corner was packed with rides. We didn’t go to the theme park, it was closed, but the boat tour circled part of it giving us a pretty good idea of the size of the place. I think if our friends had been with us in BA and we had a full day to go back, we would have gone to the theme park.





It turned out to be a pleasant New Year’s Eve day. We returned to spend the night, exhausted, in our little apartment enjoying our own champagne and sitting on our balcony. The fireworks were a sight. I think there are official fireworks we couldn’t see as there were some tremendously loud explosions but the neighbors all did their own shows. Every minute for an hour to 1:00am, there was some sort of local explosions lighting the sky. These weren’t your corner store variety fireworks (though they were sold at the corner store which I can’t believe), these were fireworks that cleared 10 storey buildings with massive shows of light. There must be many “visitors” to the hospitals on those nights. It’s a bit of a wild culture down here. You can see it in the protests that occur daily in some part of the city regarding employment, politics, health, or any minor issue that a few people can get worked up about. People here are very passionate. Even the national drink mate, is extremely personal, or at least used to be. Over time, it has moved out of the strict confines of close family and the home to the security desk at the mall or individuals sitting at a park bench. You see it everywhere and, especially when we were in Colonia, they all had it with them everywhere they went. In the big city of BA, it’s far less common to see people walking with their thermos clutched between their arm and their chest with a gourd in their hand. But as you leave the “sophistication” of the city, you get into the rural culture where the mate is trump. We wouldn’t be allowed to bring our own beer for instance into a restaurant but no one would stop you from bringing your mate. It isn’t available on any menu. Yet, at home, our coffee, which plays a similar role, is available everywhere.