A weekend at the cottage, Porteño style
Trip Start
Oct 16, 2008
1
3
35
Trip End
Apr 16, 2009
Tigre,
Argentina
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The delta itself is hundreds of little islands surrounded by navigable canals. Years ago the government started leasing what is effectively wetlands to citizens on condition they shore up the banks and plant trees to stabilise the earth. The area is littered with cottages ranging from massive and fancy to tiny and rickety. Invariably they are up on stilts as, being a river delta, the area is prone to flooding. More on that later.
An early start on the bus to the train station, an hour train journey, a quick stop in Tigre for (oh dear I canīt even say it) McDonaldīs breakfast and grocery shopping, then onto the lancha for our departure at 10am. The boat was an old wooden thing with bags and dogs on top and cramped seating below, open sides and a noisy engine. The driver was amazingly skilled at stopping and turning in very narrow canals, and you could pretty much be dropped off at any dock you liked en route. After more than an hour we were one of the last groups to get off on the Rama Negra (black branch) and it was a short walk to our cottage. What a gem. Two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a deck, a huge yard, a dock, and the all-important parrilla.
Blair and I tried very hard not to compare, but for the whole journey we couldnīt get over how similar it was to our cottage country. The style of housing is different, the water is different, the language is different, but the concept is exactly the same. Thousands of Porteņos (people from BA) escape the chaos of the city for relative calm and peace of the delta. They go fishing, boating, swimming, have barbecues, and potter around fixing stuff. I swear I could have been in Bolsover.
What a wonderful weekend. It was so relaxing to be out of the city and "in the nature". We wandered to the local almacen on Saturday afternoon, past the famous Alpen Haus (a German hotel), stopped for a few beers and watched the boats go by. Saturday evening we had our first real asado (an Argy barby), prepared expertly by Toni, lots of different cuts of meat, ribs, sausage, salad and bread. And lots of beer and wine of course. Patrick enjoyed being outside and running free, not having to hold someoneīs hand, I even dunked him in the canal, but it was very shallow and he didnīt want to touch the icky bottom.
That evening after Patrick went to bed (and fell asleep in about 30 seconds - I can hear Blairīs Uncle Bill saying "it must be all the clean air"), we played cards and drank wine till the wee hours. When we woke up on Sunday, the water level had risen substantially and we were all excited at the prospect of being stranded for a week. Otherwise it was a lazy day, we wandered up the canal to where it disappears in the reeds, admiring the abundance of wild lilies on the way - beautiful! Toni cooked up the leftover asado into an amazing pasta dish for lunch, Blair and Patrick went for a swim in the flood, and we slowly contemplated the thought of leaving our little paradise.
By the time we walked to the public dock to catch the 4pm lancha, the water was all over the yard and we had to wade barefoot for a bit, and it was still rising. We got to see why all the cottages are on stilts! To think of how much water it would have taken to fill and flood that entire delta in such a short space of time, it sure must have rained a lot upriver in the rainforest.
On the return journey we all felt like zombies, and we all slept well that night.
