Rivers of Buenos Aires

         Part of our stay in Buenos Aires actually involved getting out of the city for most of the morning and well into the afternoon.  We were booked to take a boat trip up the River Plate starting in B.A. and ending in Tigre (Tiger), an area of beauty, calm, restaurants and places to stay, and people living in the river basin on islands and such with no means of transportation except by the river.    Sounded good.

         Our travel company had us booked for a pick up rather early and we were the first to arrive at the dock.  Lucky us, they didn't have us listed as being a part of the boat tour.  We didn't know the name of the local tour agency but they managed to find us and sort it out.  We had been sitting inside the building waiting to be confirmed and other people had been arriving by the car loads.   Once closer to time to leave, we wandered outside and boy was it chilly, much colder than we expected so the boat ride was going to be inside!   Buenos Aires sits on the edge of the Rio de la Plata as it flows into the Atlantic so the mouth of the river by this point is quite large with a lot of action from the wind and waves off the Atlantic, hence the chilly wind.

             At about two minutes before 10 a.m., some invisible signal from the crew or else everybody was too cold to remain outside and we all just started getting on board the boat.  We left the deck and started up the river which at that point doesn't look anything like a river because the opposite bank is far away and it's so windy and so many waves still making themselves known off the Atlantic.  Thus it was a rocky ride to start with very little to see because of the waves hitting the windows.  Maybe 15 to 20 minutes later though we had passed the mouth of the river and it became very calm and waves gone.   Still, my hubby and I stayed in the cabin until 2/3'rds of the way through the ride by which time the sun had been shining and had warmed up the upper deck.

          I'm not even going to try and describe Tigre and the area and the islands in this river system.  I found a wonderful accounting of it by Vicky Baker, posted Sunday Feb 22, 2015 and was printed in The Guardian newspaper.  She describes the area much better than I could and she stayed some time there so had a much better feel for it.  I wish we could have spent more time there as it was so calm and just amazing between the shop boats and the kayaks and the small boat buses and wonderful homes on the water.  I think she had the right idea to just go and get lost among the islands and waterways.   Here is her link:  https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/feb/17/tigre-delta-argentina-buenos-aires-kayak-barbecue which is well worth a read.

           We passed a market just before we exited the boat which I think would have been fantastic to explore but was not to be.  Our guide collected us and another couple from the same tour agency.  We had opted for the boat ride up and van ride back to B.A.   What I didn't realize is we could have done it in the opposite direction and gotten up to Tigre in the morning, spent some time wandering around and checking out the market and then ride back.  ah well.  next time.