Tigre Delta, 1/10/16

On every trip we take an excursion not expecting much but we go because we're there and why not. We might just have stumbled across this tour even before our cruise actually starts! On Sunday morning en route to the ship we drove to the river, the extremely polluted river, where Eleana pointed to trees we could just see on the far horizon and said, "Those are the islands of the Delta." You never know if that qualifies as "visiting the Delta islands" as described in the brochure so we all looked up the wide (Uruguay is on the other side) brownish-red river, took pictures of the tree tops on the horizon then turned around to take pictures of the skyline of Buenos Aires city before getting back on the bus.

We continued driving north to the very lovely San Isidro Barrio (neighborhood). After the crowded streets and endless high rises of Buenos Aires city, this was positively bucolic. The old,  very grand homes are now converted into private schools but were once summer "palaces" where the very wealthy escaped the yellow fever and other inconveniences of the city in the hottest months. Even though it took us maybe 30 minutes to drive from the city center, way back when travel was on horseback making San Isidro at least a day's ride away, putting those people beyond the reach of disease. The barrio has small, tree lined streets of single family homes with yards and garages that seem to be comparable to an upper middle class neighborhood in the US. Lots of locals out walking their dogs (LOTS of dogs in Argentina), jogging, riding bicycles or having coffee at an outdoor cafe during the pleasant early hours of a Sunday. Eleana told us it was the priciest real estate in the Buenos Aires area.

We wandered around a bit thinking, well, this is a nice respite from the city and now to the ship. But we continued up the river to the Tigre Delta. Oh, my, what a surprise. It is an area of small streams and rivers that continuously deposit sediment to form "green islands." We have to keep reminding ourselves that this is mid-summer; the schools are closed so January is vacation time for families. I think a good percentage of them were at the Delta. It was mayhem, but a happy mayhem of cars streaming in loaded with families, beach paraphernalia, coolers, bags of charcoal and bundles of wood all headed to the docks to ride a boat to the various recreational area on the islands. There was a huge amusement park, cafes, fast food (Mickey D's everywhere down here, along with KFC, Burger King and Subway), numerous rowing clubs and people, swirling crowds of people in bathing suits, T-shirts and flip-flops. It was warm, but cloudy which made it pleasant. It sounds like a nightmare but the excitement of spending the day "at the beach" was palpable and just made me smile.

There is, of course, a story of how a previous governor or president claimed to have shot the last tiger in Argentina so he was naming the river Tigre and it was now safe to build houses on the green islands. Eleana told us that everyone knew there had never been a tiger in Argentina (Jaguars, yes and still) and it was just the usual politician's stuff and nonsense, but the name stuck.

The islands are not "connected to the continent." Keep in mind that the islands are mere yards from "the continent" but this is an important distinction. They are dotted with summer/week end homes from modest to grand, clubs, camping areas, daytime use spots with faux beaches continually refreshed with loads of sand. There is electricity and wifi on the islands but no water or cooking fuel. Each home, club, campsite has a boat dock because the only way to get to any home, club or campsite is by boat. There are big boats, small boats, water taxis, private small motor boats, row boats, canoes, kayaks, anything that can float and get you from the continent to your island destination. We boarded a wooden boat with covered seating that could probably hold 30+ people and then cruised around for an hour or so. There are floating gas stations to refuel your boat, floating supermarkets to bring you food and water and garbage boats to pick up your trash. It's like putting the UPS sign in your office window to alert the driver to stop for a pick up. Need trash pick up? Hang the bag on your dock. Need groceries or water? Hang an empty bag on your dock. (The houses all have cisterns to gather rain but that is only for bathing and clothes washing. Drinking and cooking water is delivered in big Sparkletts-type bottles.) need a ride? Text the water taxi and he dashes out. And I mean dashes. The channels are not wide, certainly not as wide as the ferry lane in Newport Harbor, but all the boats just zoom so the chop is a foot or two high. Our driver slowed whenever he passed a canoe or rowboat or the two federales just floating on jet skis, but other wise, open her up! It was such a fun time looking at the houses and waving to the people on the docks or in the other boats as we motored around. Once again, everyone was in holiday spirits which was infectious.

Every once in a while we'd pass a house that had collapsed into a pile of rubble. The buildings in Buenos Aires look a bit scruffy thanks to the heat and especially humidity, but maintenance on the island houses is even more of a challenge. Oddly enough there is a lumber mill on one of the islands (plenty of trees), but any hard materials such as cement or bricks or hardware or paint has to come by water as well as the contractors to use all of the above. Small houses start around 50k US, but it's the upkeep that really spins the meter!  I think the smart thing to do would be have a friend with a house!

We boarded the Zaandam in the afternoon. Buenos Aires has a nice, big, new cruise terminal building (Eleana told us the old one was "horrible, just horrible") but no specific cruise ship docks. We are smack dab in the middle of a very busy, very noisy, very bright at night commercial port. Our view is of endless stacks of containers being moved from here to there and sometimes onto an enormous, waiting Maersk container ship.

I'm writing this Monday morning. We don't sail until 5 pm so lots of people got off to go on an organized excursion or just explore the city. Since we've been here since early Thursday, we're having a quiet day on the ship. Even though all the ships have the same basic layout, each is just a little bit different so today is a good time to figure it all out. Jim brought along one of those five pound Ken Follett books so he left an hour or so ago to find his hidey-hole for reading. I'm setting up my internet account. You still pay for the service (from .75 per minute pay as you go or buy larger bundles of minutes that get it down as low as .25 per minute) but the good news is that rather than use the computers in the library (HAL ships still have lovely libraries) there is now wifi all over the ship so I can connect on my iPad.

We don't have enough cruise days for complimentary internet yet, but we do have enough for free laundry and pressing! We left a very stuffed laundry bag on our bed when we went to dinner last night and it was clean and pressed and wrapped in tissue in a willow basket on our bed when we got back from breakfast this morning. Putu, our room steward, has ice in the bucket, flowers in the vase and one pear and one apple in the fruit basket at all times. Everyone LOVES their room stewards!

Two bits of good news: Daryl and Noel's luggage arrived at the hotel on our last night in BA and the college football championship will be on the ship's TV.

Montevideo tomorrow. It's about 50 kilometers from here so we'll have a slow crossing tonight.