Blogs from Tigre, Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America - page 2

We crossed from Carmelo, Uruguay, through the Tigre Delta to Tigre in Argentina. The Tigre Delta begins at Tigre, with waterways that wind through the land for miles and miles. However, close to Tigre, some of the land has been given over to the well to do Portenos (BA natives) to build their holiday homes on. As we approached the town there were countless boat-wrecks rusting near the banks of the river - it is crazy that they are left there as they really are an eyesore. Tigre is considered part of the Buenos Aires district and is no more than 15kms from the centro. But it is very different - relaxed and green with some grand detached houses. We found the most amazing place to stay - a hundred year old house in a convincing ... read more

Tigre is where people from Buenos Aires go to in weekends to escape the city. One gets there by taking a train, which gives a good view of the less fashionable sights of Buenos Aires: slums and dim suburbs galore. Tigre itself has a friendly 'local tourism' feel to it, but the real fun starts out of town: a massive delta of teh Rio Paraña makes for hepas of islands and canals, with lush green banks. Boats are the most common form of public transport in Tigre, and what's not to like about that. It's touristy nature does make it a bit of an uninteresting town for people that like to go to more tranquil places. I tried for a long time to find a boat to a remote island where i could just camp and ... read more

As a class, we have a few larger "excursions" planned for the term. The first of these was a trip to El Tigre, where many city-dwellers have little vacation "casitas" on the river banks (kind of like lakeside bungalows in New England). It was a gorgeous day - we took a nice boat ride to a restaurant on an island in the river, and afterwards made a visit to San Isidro, where we visited another feria and were treated to helados by our professor (who is AMAZING) ... read more

We are nearing the end of this trip....and doing some of the things we missed at the beginning of the trip here... Yesterday, we walked arcross the city from our hotel through St. Telmo (where BA originated) to La Boca (where immigrants arrived, and tango grew famous, along with soccer) for about 7 hours, stopping for meals and sights. We strolled through antique markets, got caught in a thunderstorm, walked into La Boca (where looking at poverty painted bright colors is a tourist attraction), walked with the crowds waiting to to get into the Boca Juniors game (where Maradona played...) and decided not to join them (a good idea it turned since the thunderstorms increased as the gane time neared), and watched tango finally.... The day before, we spent time with Silvina and Enders, the couple ... read more

Saturday we had a trip to El Tigre, a city which is just north of Buenos Aires, and the Parana River Delta. We toured a series of islands and waterways, where many people have weekend houses. It sort of reminded me of in the United States how people have lakeside cottages they go to during their days off. Instead of roads, there are rivers, and instead of cars the people have boats. Even their supermarkets are on boats. It was a really pretty area to see, and it was nice to have a day away from the city, even though I’ve found I love living in the capital. We spent most of the day at a recreation area called El Alcazar, which had beaches, areas for sports, and food. One of the highlights of our day ... read more