The population of Argentina is about 45 million people, and the population of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area is about 13 million. Today all of them were in Tigre, give or take an order of magnitude or two. Actually that’s what it seemed like. Yesterday I wrote that it was going to be nice to be out of the city for the day, but it seemed like we took the city with us, plus a couple million people, give or take. Regardless, it was a good experience though one I will not repeat on a Sunday.
When we were walking the Caminho Portugues last year we met Elena, an interesting woman who lives in Olivos, a neighborhood north of BsAs. We agreed to meet her today at the Retiro train station to journey together to Tigre. As we waited for her she sent a text that there had been an accident on the train line from Tigre and she would be late. We subsequently learned that the trains to Tigre had been cancelled due to a collision with a motorcycle. Elena arrived with Plan B fully engaged and we went to Vicente Lopez for a walking tour in order to get us closer to Tigre while waiting for the tracks to clear.
We toured some middle class neighborhoods, threw rocks at the Presidential enclave along with the entire Argentine population. Check that. That sentence was sarcasm. Just in case the authorities are watching, we were not the ones throwing rocks. In fact we do not know if there were any rocks at all. Particularly the type that were being thrown. But from the nature of the graffiti we’ve seen, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was at least one tossed in the general direction of the presidential enclave, even if it was several kilometers away.
After a while we took an overcrowded trainlet to a different part of Tigre. I was not prepared for fourteen million other people who arrived before we did. That is really no slight exaggeration. Fortunately Elena had Plan C firmly under control and she guided us to a ticket counter for an interisland water bus to take us to a restaurant she knew about. The river delta was alive with all types of water craft. There were large and small catamarans, motor boats ranging in size from two seaters to Queen Elizabeth class (not a slight exaggeration either). There were water taxis, water buses, row boats, canoes, kayaks, jet skis and many other recreational craft. I should have taken photos but was suffering from a severe case of attituditis at the time.
We were on the water for about twenty minutes before being dropped off on and island in the middle of the delta, where we walked along the river, crossing small, deteriorating bridges until we arrived at a nice outdoor patio covered with vines I do not know.
After lunch we walked around the canals and finally than headed back towards BsAs. On the way back we got off the train in Belgrano where we had heard tango dancing would be underway at a glorieta (gazebo) in a public park. We found the dancing and watched for a while as dozens of pairs of dancers displayed various levels of proficiency. Paula and I recognized that our one attempt at taking tango lessons was spoiled by an instructor who insisted we learn too much too quickly. It seemed like those who were not dazzling the crowd were at least enjoying themselves very much.
Paula is trying to upload a video she took of this event but is running into data limits. We’ll let you know if we can get it done.
Right now we are waiting for the lunar eclipse and wondering what tango has to say about the current war on boys typified by the new Gillette ad.
Until later …….
Shared Illusions 