El Tigre (BA Day 9)

We heard about this city, El Tigre, to the north of 'the Capital' (what we just discovered they call the part of Buenos Aires we are staying - the big city part) and decided to take a day trip. It is a popular vacation spot and summer home location.

The town sits on an island created by several small streams and rivers. It was founded in 1820, after floods had destroyed other settlements. The area was first settled by Europeans who came to farm the land, and the port developed to serve the Delta and to bring fruit and wood from the Delta and ports upstream on the Paraná river. Tigre is still an important timber processing port.

Towards 1880 Buenos Aires' social upper class chose Tigre as their summer centre. The most renowned families built huge mansions in there, many of which are still standing. This peak prolonged until the late decade of the 20s in the XX century. Nowadays Tigre is regarded as "Argentine's Rowing Cradle", and it offers both national and international travellers an endless list of possibilities. The current population is of 3000 inhabitants and its "isles" are exploited mainly to supply the paper industry with cellulose and agglomerate. Likewise, the cultivation of wicker for craftsmanship purposes represent between 80 and 90% of the entire production of the country.

We took a train to get there. It was the kids' first train ride. They loved it, even though it was just a pretty ratty old commuter train. Can't beat the price, though - about 35 cents per person - with Kerrigan free!

It was about a 45 minute train ride. It was neat to see the suburbs and other parts of BA. (I also discovered today that they abbreviate Buenos Aires here with 'BsAs', but I'm going to keep using 'BA' because it's easier).

Arriving in El Tigre. What a different world! Ahhh, breathe the fresh air!

Hudson practicing coming down the fireman pole as we wait for our boat

Instead of taking the hour and a half tour on the big boat, we decided to ride with the locals on the taxi boat.

It was about 30 minutes to Tres Bocas - one of the many little islands where we were to have lunch

the kids loved the boat, too

some of the views along the way

our little navigator

It was beautiful. If the water was blue, it would have been really beautiful. There were little beaches and people do actually swim in the brown water.

but they have direct TV

(not sure if you can tell how much this house was falling apart. We actually thought it was abandoned until we saw the clothes on the clothesline and the direct TV satellite dish. We thought it was funny, so had to get a picture)

tired little navigator asleep on the job

hiking the path at Tres Bocas

some questionable bridges

makes you want to just jump right in :)

It's like a little Venice in that everything that goes in or out is by boat. This boat appeared to be bringing food, water, etc. to a restaurant.

T

stopping for lunch

the view from our table

They had this cute little chair for Kerrigan. Not a highchair, but a tiny, tall chair. She looked so cute in it and liked have her own chair.

The newer, faster commuter boat we took back

Hudson loving the boat rides

There were these huge, old ships just sitting there rusting out.

There was also an amusement park and casino

The Buenos Aires Rowing Club established over 100 years ago.

some of the old mansions