Tigre Delta

We had a crazy long day yesterday.

We had to fly out of Mendoza super early, at 6:55 am, due to the plane change from the strike....so up at 4:30, 2 hour flight, some maybe remnants of strike issues resulting in a 45 min wait on the tarmac in BA then at least a 30 min wait for our luggage to come out on the conveyor belt followed by a 45 min drive through rush hour bumper to bumper traffic in Buenos Aires to our hotel (that same drive took us 10 mins last Sunday in no traffic).  We didn't arrive in our hotel until nearly 11am and we were expecting to be there around 9:15am.

We were pretty bagged by the time we got into our room but already had plans to head just 35 km north of Buenos Aires to the Tigre Delta which is among the world’s largest deltas, and is unique in that it is one of the only ones in the world that doesn't flow directly into the ocean.

It turns into the Río del Plata, a river that borders the city of Buenos Aires and separates Argentina from Uruguay. 

Public ferry dock in Tigre

 

The delta is made up of thousands of remote islands, streams and canals...it definitely has a wonderful atmosphere for those seeking a quiet retreat. The only way to get around is on the water. 

There is a public ferry that we used to get around for pretty cheap. There were day tours we looked at but they were super expensive...as every tour is in this country, so we decided to try it on our own instead and and save a couple hundred bucks (yep, you read that right...$85-$150 USD is the average rate for ANY day tour). We ended up taking the metro to the train station then buying return tickets to Tigre on the local train were we traveled around on the public ferry all for about $10 each.

Stilt houses: every house has their own dock and the ferry picks up anyone on their dock waving it over.

Public ferry

On the ferry looking back at Tigre.

While the town of Tigre is fairly charming, it's pretty big and we just wanted to head straight to the delta to see the waterways and stilt houses. The water is so brown it looks dirty...it apparently isn't, but just brown because it is rich with iron from the jungle streams that flow from inland South America.

The boat rides deep into the delta and has scenic peeks at local stilt houses and colonial mansions, and you can hike along quiet trails. All along the shorelines are signs of water-related activity like kayaking, ski-dooing, canoeing, boating and fishing.

 

It was really beautiful there but in the end it took us so long in transport to get there and back, on an already long day, that the reward wasn't work the effort put into it.... 1 hour train each way (plus the metro ride to get to the train station) and 30 min boat ride each way to the little neighborhood we walked around in, Tres Bocas, plus waiting time for all above transport vehicles....in the end, for about 30 mins of walking around in Tres Bocas it took us roughly 4 hours to get there and back.

We were so exhausted after this we literally just ate McDonald's for dinner on the return train, stumbled into our hotel room and were both fast asleep by 9pm.
 

In a 12 hour period we took 2 taxi's, 1 plane. 2 metro rides, 2 train rides and 2 boat rides!!!!!

Trez Bocas dock while waiting for return ferry.

Freaky insect that  looked like a stick with a butterfly on it!!!!! Creepy!