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We got out of the city once again on Thursday. Our original plan was to take a ferry to Uraguay for the day, but eventually decided to head North of BA to the Parana River delta instead. Getting there was not trivial. From our apartment, we hopped on the subte and transferred to a second line which terminated at the Retiro train station. For less than $1 peso apiece, we took a 40 minute commuter train ride through the north end of the city and its immediate suburbs. At the end of the line, we walked to a 2nd train station called Maipu.
Naturally, this led to an innumerable amount of Maipu jokes. I'm sure I don't need to repeat any...
From Maipu we took la Tren de la Costa up the coast of the Rio de la Plata, through some nice suburbs until we reached Tigre. After initially walking the wrong way and ending up in a half-closed open air market, we eventually reached "downtown" Tigre.
The Parana River delta (Parana is the 2nd longest river in South America after the Amazon) consists of 14,000 square kilometers of islands, inlets, waterways, and canals, none of which can
be reached by car. From Tigre we purchased tickets for the "busboat", literally a small ferry that the delta folk use to get from their homes to the mainland.
The locals tossed their grocery bags on top of the boat while the rest of us sat down below deck. Each boat can hold about 80 people, and different companies shuttle people to and from several different areas of the delta. The ride was peaceful, going many miles "in-river" from the main station. In the delta, there are no roadways, only waterways. Therefore, each dock is its own address, with inlet names in place of street names. Along the way, the busboat would stop at each of several individual docks as a single person would get off at his/her house.
After about a 40 minute ride, we got off at a little "town" called Tres Bocas. Tres Bocas boasts 3 (count 'em: 3!) restaurants and at least one mini-hotel. After disembarking, we took a stroll down several "streets." During our entire hour long walk along various waterfronts, passing a hundred or so houses, we saw a grand total of 2 people. It was quite the contrast from the hustle
and bustle of Buenos Aires, even though we were only ~30 miles upriver.
It was almost eerie how quiet things were. We would see an occasional canoeist pass by, but basically it was just us on this serene collection of islands and streams. If only the sun had come out, it would have been the perfect afternoon.
After walking around for an hour or so, we stopped to have lunch at one of the 3 (yes, 3!) restaurants in Tres Bocas, grabbing a sandwich right on the water as we waited for a busboat to take us back to Tigre.
We were back home by 7:00, after the most crowded subway ride ever and headed out for pizza (more on the pizza to come on a later post. Very odd. You'll see...)
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