South America: Brazil, Argentina and Chile with Easter Island
Day Six – 22 June 2016
Weather: Sunny, 13
Steps: 7854 (5.3 km)
I was awake at six but managed to lay my head back down for an hour more. Breakfast was a little more basic than the hotels in Brazil but the pastry was good.
I dropped down to the front desk to have them confirm my ranch excursion for tomorrow. It’s a go.
Yenny and Sylvia, our driver, showed up at ten and we headed north toward Tigre. Yenny tells me the city is named for the tiger or more specifically, the jaguar that is now almost extinct except for the Iguazu area.
She took out her map and showed me the three cities we would pass through on the way including San Olivios (named for the olive trees), San Martinez and San Isidro. We started with a visit to a train station that had some artisan stalls. I picked up a fridge magnet and a silver pendant in the shape of a dragonfly for my sister.
Yenny then took me up through the Plaza of San Isidro to visit the Neogothical San Isidro Labrador Cathedral that was built in 1898.
The area contains a lot of homes in the Spanish style and many are painted pink because they used what they had to make the colour – cow’s blood. One home was the residence of the first governor of the Falkland Islands, Luis Vernet.
We returned to the car and made our way to Tigre and boarded the boat for the one hour cruise.
There are two excursions offered here. The half day and the full day. The half day is the one hour cruise in a smaller boat which can navigate the smaller estuaries of the Delta. The full day involves a three hour cruise on a catamaran which can’t go down the smaller estuaries.
Yenny said the one hour is definitely the better choice.
Tigre is on the edge of the Parana Delta. This is the same river that starts in Iguazu. The Delta is a number of islands that have no water or roads so that everything is brought in by boat.
They do filter the river water for some uses but have their drinking water brought in. The area is popular with rowing clubs and has a casino and amusement park.
I even managed a shot of the local Argentinian wildlife.
Oh. Wait.
The houses all have names as well like Las Vegas, Ying-n-Yang, Terranova and more.
One house was encased in glass.
It’s called the Sarmiento House and from 1855 to 1888, it was the residence of Domingo Sarmiento, Argentina’s seventh president.
The glass was installed to protect the home.
There were also a number of wrecks on the shorelines.
And one cute puppy out for a ride in a boat.
Big puppy. Really big puppy.
We pulled back into the dock at one thirty and took the highway back to Buenos Aires. I dropped my camera off in my room and went for a walk down Florida Avenue – the pedestrian shopping road that is full of people yelling ‘cambio, cambio, cambio.”
Since the street was in the shade, it was quite a bit colder than out in the sun and I am now the proud new owner of a Buenos Aires Sweatshirt. I put it on in the store, said I’ll take it and didn’t take it off. The staff had no problem understanding why.
I walked as far as the Casa Rosada and headed back for the evening.
Tomorrow I gorge on BBQ….with a little less money in my pocket than I had thought!
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