Nothing like a great sleep to allow you to leap from bed in anticipation of a great day ahead. OK, well maybe slowly throw back the covers and gradually get out of bed at a snail’s pace allowing your muscles to start moving properly.
At the appointed hour, I met Nanci in the breakfast room ready to go on our excursion for the day. The only reason I mention this pedestrian part of my day is that a nice gentleman joined us at our table part way through breakfast as it was quite crowded. After 20 minutes or so of Nanci and I chatting with each other, he leaned in and asked where we lived. We said Canada, and he asked what city. Turns out he lives in Ottawa and works at a personal care home on Beechwood, a 10 minute walk from my condo and approximately half way between Nanci and I! He is here visiting his father. Another small world example follows at the end of the day.
Our original excursion for today was cancelled just yesterday because the tour operator had cancelled. Viator quickly refunded the cost and offered a couple of other options. We opted for a plan B which was similar to the original tour but which was half as expensive. It didn’t include some parts of the original tour. Turns out that the original plan would have taken us out into the rain as we did get some showers while we were making our way out of the city by bus. So it all worked out for the best.
By the way, on our way out of the city we passed by the largest football stadium in all of Argentina and all of South America, Estadio Mas Monumental. Its capacity is over 85,000 for football and it’s here where the Argentinian national team plays. In 1978 the FIFA World Cup was held in this stadium with the host team from Argentina defeating the Netherlands, by a score of 3 -1, our guide told us with great pride.
The weather today went from grey and rainy to blue skies and sun to grey and windy to blue and warm in the sun, so we spent the day putting on layers and taking them off. But it really was a perfect day for touring.
Buenos Aires city (population 3 million) is in Buenos Aires Province (17 million) and the total population of Argentina is approximately 45 million. So you can see that a substantial part of the population lives in the immediate vicinity of Buenos Aires. And it seems that all 17 million of those living in BA Province cram into the city during the day to work. There are buses and trains, etc. but a lot of cars!
We have already seen quite a lot of the main areas of the older downtown area of Buenos Aires by foot even in the short time we’ve been here, and we have a guided tour tomorrow with WingBuddy where we’ll hit the main spots. So today we wanted to get out of the city.
Our private bus and guide took us north of the city along part of the 17,000 km Pan American highway that stretches from Alaska to the tip of South America. Our destination was the municipality of Tigre, sometimes referred to as the Venice of Argentina or Venice of South America. The land here is the delta of the Parana River, developed over time by silt being laid down as the river emptied into the South Atlantic Ocean. The islands do not have bridges and so the people who built homes there must take private boats or river taxis to get to their properties much like they do in Venice. Tigre is one of the 135 districts (barrios in Spanish) of the province of Buenos Aires in the norther part of the metropolitan area.
We wondered why a town in Argentina, where no tigers live, was named Tigre or tiger, in English, and why the symbol for the town was a cat face with spots not stripes. Apparently early Spanish settlers encountered and hunted jaguars, which they mistakenly called “tigres” or “tigres americanos”. Today jaguars are endangered with only 200 or so left in the north of Argentina. Also you’ll find out later that we were dropped off to shop at a Fruit Market that sells no fruit. Confused? Us too.
Tigre has a resort feel to it with both ramshackle and palatial properties along the canals we made a quick photo stop at an art museum on the Tigre River that has taken over a former private mansion that had been turned into a casino but has now been turned into an art museum. The building and grounds were beautiful although seemed a little grey since it was drizzling a little at that point.
We piled back on the bus to drive over to the main canal and disembarked our bus at the terminal where water taxis and tourist boats load up and our small group joined some other tours on the Francisco de Viedma, part of the Sturla fleet of tourist boats. In no time we were making our way through the canals, and rivers of the delta enjoying the green shorelines and varied docks and houses along the shoreline as well as an amusement park and the Fruit Market.
As an aside, along the way today we learned about Yerba Mate. We saw our guide pour something from a thermos into an unusual cup with what looked like the end of a pipe sticking out of it. Turns out it’s a tea many Argentinians enjoy instead of coffee. Yerba Mate is a plant that they use to make this apparently bitter, but heavily caffeinated, tea in this unusual cup. Our guide was adding more hot water to the leaves in the cup called a bombilla or bomba. The “straw” acts like a strainer to keep the leaves from coming up with each sip and the cup is traditionally made from nickel, silver, stainless steel or hollow-stemmed cane. Some are covered in hand sewn leather, and others ornately embellished with gem stones, or etched silver.
The boat tour was approximately an hour from start to finish and it was great to be out on the water….. have I mentioned how much I enjoy every activity that involves getting out in or on the water in some way? I suspect I have.
Then it was back toward the city to a place called the Peurto de Frutos, which of course used to be the fruit market but is now a huge market area full of small kiosks and shops selling primarily house hold furnishings and designer objects. But food and jewelry and so much more. We had 40 minutes so wander but couldn’t cover even a small portion of the place.
Our return trip was much faster with better traffic flow, and we were dropped back about a 30 minute walk from our hotel, in an area where we’d walked yesterday. Along the way we stopped to have lunch and to visit the Cathedral of Buenos Aires which was the seat of Pope Francis, and dates back to the 17th century. The tomb of General Jose de San Martin is placed in the cathedral and guarded by ceremonial military, one of whom looked like he was going to pass out at any moment. It was surprising to see inside the church today because from the outside the building it is really unassuming and from the sidewalk doesn’t even really look like a church.
We stopped at a couple of other churches near our hotel to take a look and some pictures. By now our beds were calling so we headed back to nap knowing it was going to be a late night tonight.
We walked just one block away to La Ventana, one of the oldest Tango shows in Buenos Aires. It’s definitely one of the “must-dos” on the list for BA in my mind. (We went to a Flamingo show in Spain that was in the same category of when in Rome). Only some of our WindBuddy group did this optional activity and we sat with two couples, one from Markham and one from Vancouver. After chatting a bit we discovered that the woman from Vancouver was the pharmacist at the drugstore at Champlain Mall, which was our local shopping place for 30 or so years when I lived in Vancouver. Small World #2.
The dinner was fabulous. I started with a Calabrese Salad, then decided that in Argentina, steak was probably a good bet. And I was right. We had a couple of hours to eat and then the show started. There was a group of musicians (piano, base, violins x2 and accordion called a bandoneon) on stage for the whole show and 3 pairs of tango dancers that came and went through many tangos and costume changes, (including gaucho folk dress and dance) a female and male singer who sang separately and together, and a fellow playing what I think was a charango, a stringed instrument that sounded somewhat like a ukulele.
The final act was, you guessed it, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”. A classic example of a song that rallies the patriotic spirit in its intended audience. The singers started softly, with the dancers on stage with them and built to a grand finale, ending with literal flag waving. For a little stage and not very many cast, it was a great show and well worth the price paid.
It was a late night and I was glad of the short walk in the cool air to start to settle down for a great sleep. It was a long day with so many images flashing through my mind that it took a bit for me to fall asleep but once I did I stayed that way for the whole night.
Lois' Adventures 