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Having had our fill of Buenos Aires, for Wednesday 26 June we had booked a tour from our hotel to the delta city of Tigre. Situated 35km north of Buenos Aires, Tigre is a popular destination for city residents looking to get away from the bustle of the capital. Ultimately, it was a neat Argentinian town alongside the latte coloured network of waterways which make up the delta of the Plata River. Being furries, we were obviously drawn to the tiger themed signage which proliferated the place, but what struck us most was the genteel sedate pace of life here.
Our minibus was scheduled to pick us up at 8:50am but it was about ten minutes late, giving me plenty of time to sneakily do my Duolingo as we waited. We then spent the next hour or so driving around a number of Buenos Aires's top hotels, picking up tourists as we did, before we sped north out of the city. The drive to Tigre only took about forty minutes in total down a pretty standard motorway, although we did get a glimpse of the River Plate football stadium as well as the domestic airport, which was being served by many pretty blue and white planes of Argentina's national airline. I was a little apprehensive as my seatbelt on the minibus wasn't working, but the driver was largely good and soon we had arrived in Tigre safely.
Our first stop was the Museo de Arte Tigre, the town's grandest museum as it is housed in a huge social club built in the French style in 1912. This was initially a casino, with a hotel adjacent to it, but the hotel burnt down some years later. There was a huge element of affluence here, with a beautiful roofed balcony heading out towards the riverbank. It is said that a number of people committed suicide here due to gambling losses, which is what forced the casino to close, meaning the building is forever trapped in its 1920s Bohemian style. Our first visit to the museum was just a walk around the grounds (seeing some odd sculptures contained within it too), but we were to return later in the day with another tour group to take a look at the mediocre artworks contained within. Some famous Argentine works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are contained within here and an hour long stroll was a pleasant way to escape from the cold, but with little explanation in English, there was little I could glean. I did like the pictures of the industrial La Boca district done out of charcoal, which had a very strong sense of pathos.
Our next stop was the Puerto de Frutos or Fruit Port, just down the road. This dock area is somewhat misleading as it now houses a range of stores selling crafts and handiworks. We were given about forty-five minutes to walk around here but it was all pretty desolate, with many of the shops being shuttered due to it being a cold Wednesday in mid-winter. We did manage to get a little flavour of some of the stalls as a few were open, but without the hustle and the bustle of people, it wasn't quite the same. Most of the restaurants were closed too, what with it being 11am, and aside from the exquisite view of the delta and some of the islands beyond, there was little else here really (although there were a few pretty murals and a weird bloke who may or may not have been an unofficial photographer you pay to take pictures there - he seemed to be doing that with a group of about five, I was just unsure whether he was part of that group or not). Interestingly, some of the houses on the islands though were quite exclusive, with a rowing club and a few presidential retreats to be discovered. This was really interesting, as was watching the boats leave Tigre's dainty harbour and chug back and forth supplying the islanders with supplies.
Our tour group split at this point as we had opted for the all day rather than the half day tour. This saw us paired up with a miserable looking lady from South Carolina and a sweet couple from Vancouver. This was fortunate for me as I had travelled to both of these places in the past, meaning I could start conversation, while we were also given a new guide, a nice elderly lady who told us a lot about how the town had developed. It was now lunchtime, so we were taken to a restaurant called Faustino right by the harbour, which had been constructed by the British. We were served a delicious chicken dish with a neapolitan ice cream for dessert, and we decided to treat ourselves to a glass of the local malbec too. Over dinner, the conversation flowed quite well, with the South Carolina lady lamenting people moving down to her state from the North, as she had done twenty years earlier. She was really nice in the end, while the Vancouver couple were very much like us. Sadly, the conversation did turn on to Brexit and all of us, including our guide, were united in the view that the project was rank idiocy so at least there was agreement there. It was a shame that Brexit frequently followed us around, but then it always does these days.
After our food and a trip to McDonald's for the bathroom, we were given tickets to ride the distinctive blue tourist bus around the town. This took us to many of the places we had already visited - the Fruit Port, the art museum (where we got off for our second visit, the one that took us inside) before we returned back to the harbour. We were scheduled to get a boat back to Buenos Aires at 4pm, so with a little time to kill, I decided to walk around the neat little railway station which served the town. The line was the one straight to Retiro, the station we had visited in the capital the day before, and had we known we could just get a direct train, we may have opted for this rather than the tour. Either way, we didn't regret it though as our guide was so lovely and it was great hearing about her life and that of her family, who are living in various different places all around the world.
She guided us to our rather modern and sleek boat at the harbour, which is where we split up from the three others with whom we had spent the afternoon. The boat ride itself guided us through the waterways of the delta, allowing us to spot some of the islands and notice the harshness of life in these communities. It was really fascinating, not to mention picturesque as we chugged along the narrow waterways. After about an hour, we turned to the starboard and headed into the open river, hugging the coast back to Buenos Aires. The harbour was very near the skyscrapers and coming into it, with containers on one side and the impressive structures on the other was incredibly evocative in the sunset. Alas, it was a little too cold to spend too long on deck, but it was something we did for a short while if only to experience it. Watching the sun setting over the water was tremendously beautiful too, with the sky a swollen pink hue.
Fox Amoore had been on Telegram earlier in the day, expressing concern about the time we had booked the boat to Uruguay the next day. We had opted for the 08:15am departure and he had only just arrived from the United States, so he wondered whether we could go for a later crossing. I was a little frustrated with the inconvenience, but the Buquebus ferry terminal was literally next door to the harbour where we disembarked from the Tigre boat so I thought I might as well swing by and see what I could do. In the end, despite a twenty minute wait, changing the tickets was incredibly easy and indeed it was something that we were quite grateful about the next day, not only for the extra lie-in but also because we would have run out of things to do in Colonia had we stayed any longer than we did.
Fox had also mentioned to us that he was out with Polichio and a few locals, but we had already arranged to have dinner with Fluffy, his partner and a friend of theirs. However, we did say we may be able to join them later on. We had tried to unite Fluffy's crew with Polichio's party, but Fluffy's friend wanted to try a bar called Cerveceria Rojas, so this is where we headed via the Subte. Upon arrival about twenty minutes later, we spotted the three of them stood outside a closed bar, debating where to go next. I tried again to get them down to San Telmo to meet Poli's crew, but instead we headed around the corner to a pretty standard bar which served Patagonia beers and adequate burgers. Fluffy and his partner didn't speak much English so conversation was difficult, but we had a really good time and enjoyed their company, staying with them for about two hours until the music became somewhat loud.
We then decided to try and find Fox Amoore, hopping on another Subte to get to the San Telmo district where we ended up bouncing around between San Juan and Independencia stations due to mixed messages as to where everyone was. We initially tried going to Bierlife, the bar where they had spent the last four hours, but once we got to San Juan, we were told to go to Independenzia instead, one stop back on ourselves, as they had gone to get lomo. We didn't get this message in time though and without data on our phones, we ended up trudging a lot around San Telmo, eventually returning back to San Juan just to get WiFi. I had gotten lost in all honesty and ended up having to pay for data, making me somewhat angry, but we did in the end manage to find about ten furs in a restaurant we had actually walked past on the Sunday before. They were finishing their food and were tempted to go home, even though it was only 10pm at this point. Fortunately, they were pursuaded to go to a German themed bar for one final drink, with us occupying the entire balcony upstairs, basically enjoying a massive reunion. It was great catching up with Fox again, this was the first time we had met since the previous November, while it was also cool meeting up with some of the locals again too. It certainly marked a nice end to the day and I didn't really want it to end, but alas at midnight we felt it was time to go and so headed back to our hotel, a twenty minute walk away.
Our minibus was scheduled to pick us up at 8:50am but it was about ten minutes late, giving me plenty of time to sneakily do my Duolingo as we waited. We then spent the next hour or so driving around a number of Buenos Aires's top hotels, picking up tourists as we did, before we sped north out of the city. The drive to Tigre only took about forty minutes in total down a pretty standard motorway, although we did get a glimpse of the River Plate football stadium as well as the domestic airport, which was being served by many pretty blue and white planes of Argentina's national airline. I was a little apprehensive as my seatbelt on the minibus wasn't working, but the driver was largely good and soon we had arrived in Tigre safely.
Our first stop was the Museo de Arte Tigre, the town's grandest museum as it is housed in a huge social club built in the French style in 1912. This was initially a casino, with a hotel adjacent to it, but the hotel burnt down some years later. There was a huge element of affluence here, with a beautiful roofed balcony heading out towards the riverbank. It is said that a number of people committed suicide here due to gambling losses, which is what forced the casino to close, meaning the building is forever trapped in its 1920s Bohemian style. Our first visit to the museum was just a walk around the grounds (seeing some odd sculptures contained within it too), but we were to return later in the day with another tour group to take a look at the mediocre artworks contained within. Some famous Argentine works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are contained within here and an hour long stroll was a pleasant way to escape from the cold, but with little explanation in English, there was little I could glean. I did like the pictures of the industrial La Boca district done out of charcoal, which had a very strong sense of pathos.
Our next stop was the Puerto de Frutos or Fruit Port, just down the road. This dock area is somewhat misleading as it now houses a range of stores selling crafts and handiworks. We were given about forty-five minutes to walk around here but it was all pretty desolate, with many of the shops being shuttered due to it being a cold Wednesday in mid-winter. We did manage to get a little flavour of some of the stalls as a few were open, but without the hustle and the bustle of people, it wasn't quite the same. Most of the restaurants were closed too, what with it being 11am, and aside from the exquisite view of the delta and some of the islands beyond, there was little else here really (although there were a few pretty murals and a weird bloke who may or may not have been an unofficial photographer you pay to take pictures there - he seemed to be doing that with a group of about five, I was just unsure whether he was part of that group or not). Interestingly, some of the houses on the islands though were quite exclusive, with a rowing club and a few presidential retreats to be discovered. This was really interesting, as was watching the boats leave Tigre's dainty harbour and chug back and forth supplying the islanders with supplies.
Our tour group split at this point as we had opted for the all day rather than the half day tour. This saw us paired up with a miserable looking lady from South Carolina and a sweet couple from Vancouver. This was fortunate for me as I had travelled to both of these places in the past, meaning I could start conversation, while we were also given a new guide, a nice elderly lady who told us a lot about how the town had developed. It was now lunchtime, so we were taken to a restaurant called Faustino right by the harbour, which had been constructed by the British. We were served a delicious chicken dish with a neapolitan ice cream for dessert, and we decided to treat ourselves to a glass of the local malbec too. Over dinner, the conversation flowed quite well, with the South Carolina lady lamenting people moving down to her state from the North, as she had done twenty years earlier. She was really nice in the end, while the Vancouver couple were very much like us. Sadly, the conversation did turn on to Brexit and all of us, including our guide, were united in the view that the project was rank idiocy so at least there was agreement there. It was a shame that Brexit frequently followed us around, but then it always does these days.
After our food and a trip to McDonald's for the bathroom, we were given tickets to ride the distinctive blue tourist bus around the town. This took us to many of the places we had already visited - the Fruit Port, the art museum (where we got off for our second visit, the one that took us inside) before we returned back to the harbour. We were scheduled to get a boat back to Buenos Aires at 4pm, so with a little time to kill, I decided to walk around the neat little railway station which served the town. The line was the one straight to Retiro, the station we had visited in the capital the day before, and had we known we could just get a direct train, we may have opted for this rather than the tour. Either way, we didn't regret it though as our guide was so lovely and it was great hearing about her life and that of her family, who are living in various different places all around the world.
She guided us to our rather modern and sleek boat at the harbour, which is where we split up from the three others with whom we had spent the afternoon. The boat ride itself guided us through the waterways of the delta, allowing us to spot some of the islands and notice the harshness of life in these communities. It was really fascinating, not to mention picturesque as we chugged along the narrow waterways. After about an hour, we turned to the starboard and headed into the open river, hugging the coast back to Buenos Aires. The harbour was very near the skyscrapers and coming into it, with containers on one side and the impressive structures on the other was incredibly evocative in the sunset. Alas, it was a little too cold to spend too long on deck, but it was something we did for a short while if only to experience it. Watching the sun setting over the water was tremendously beautiful too, with the sky a swollen pink hue.
Fox Amoore had been on Telegram earlier in the day, expressing concern about the time we had booked the boat to Uruguay the next day. We had opted for the 08:15am departure and he had only just arrived from the United States, so he wondered whether we could go for a later crossing. I was a little frustrated with the inconvenience, but the Buquebus ferry terminal was literally next door to the harbour where we disembarked from the Tigre boat so I thought I might as well swing by and see what I could do. In the end, despite a twenty minute wait, changing the tickets was incredibly easy and indeed it was something that we were quite grateful about the next day, not only for the extra lie-in but also because we would have run out of things to do in Colonia had we stayed any longer than we did.
Fox had also mentioned to us that he was out with Polichio and a few locals, but we had already arranged to have dinner with Fluffy, his partner and a friend of theirs. However, we did say we may be able to join them later on. We had tried to unite Fluffy's crew with Polichio's party, but Fluffy's friend wanted to try a bar called Cerveceria Rojas, so this is where we headed via the Subte. Upon arrival about twenty minutes later, we spotted the three of them stood outside a closed bar, debating where to go next. I tried again to get them down to San Telmo to meet Poli's crew, but instead we headed around the corner to a pretty standard bar which served Patagonia beers and adequate burgers. Fluffy and his partner didn't speak much English so conversation was difficult, but we had a really good time and enjoyed their company, staying with them for about two hours until the music became somewhat loud.
We then decided to try and find Fox Amoore, hopping on another Subte to get to the San Telmo district where we ended up bouncing around between San Juan and Independencia stations due to mixed messages as to where everyone was. We initially tried going to Bierlife, the bar where they had spent the last four hours, but once we got to San Juan, we were told to go to Independenzia instead, one stop back on ourselves, as they had gone to get lomo. We didn't get this message in time though and without data on our phones, we ended up trudging a lot around San Telmo, eventually returning back to San Juan just to get WiFi. I had gotten lost in all honesty and ended up having to pay for data, making me somewhat angry, but we did in the end manage to find about ten furs in a restaurant we had actually walked past on the Sunday before. They were finishing their food and were tempted to go home, even though it was only 10pm at this point. Fortunately, they were pursuaded to go to a German themed bar for one final drink, with us occupying the entire balcony upstairs, basically enjoying a massive reunion. It was great catching up with Fox again, this was the first time we had met since the previous November, while it was also cool meeting up with some of the locals again too. It certainly marked a nice end to the day and I didn't really want it to end, but alas at midnight we felt it was time to go and so headed back to our hotel, a twenty minute walk away.
