Recharging the batteries in El Tigre, Argentina
As much as we enjoyed spending some time in the city, we generally prefer to stretch our legs in more open spaces and the natural environment. After a week in the commotion of Buenos Aires, we planned a long weekend away to the exurb of Tigre. Only an hour train ride north of the City, Tigre provided us a chance to see life on the river delta in an area that’s known for being a popular getaway for Porteños (people of Buenos Aires).
Our train to Tigre departed after our final class at the Vamos Spanish Academy. The kids were real troopers as they completed one of our longer walks in full packs. We trekked from the apartment to school to the train station and to our new apartment. We’ll have many more days like that, but it was a relief when we saw it all work out without too much complaint for the first time.
The main train station in Buenos Aires, Retiro, was the start of our journey and where we caught our train to Tigre. From the inside, the Retiro station is a huge art deco style building with the main ticket counter and a few kiosks where you can get a pancho (local street hot dog) and a drink before the train ride. The train platform caught the kids’ attention as they recognized how Retiro’s train station looked very similar to St. Louis’ own Union Station. Once we managed to navigate the process for getting our train tickets, it was a short wait to hop on the train and away we went.
Riding the train was a new experience for Coco. “Daddy, why are there no seatbelts?” The guy sitting in front of us quickly responded in thick accent with, “…because this is Latin America!” The train ride was a great way to see the outskirts of Buenos Aires, including the grounds of the horse track, Hipodromo Argentino de Palermo. On the train, it is common to see buskers. Four separate performers passed through our train car. One played a Spanish tune with his Spanish Guitar, another with his rock guitar and amp, a blind a capella singer, and one man who recited a poem.
From the moment we stepped off the train, everything seemed calmer, quieter and slower in Tigre. Our apartment was a short walk from the train station and walking into our new home was a breath of fresh air with more space and sunlight than our previous location. The kids enjoyed the balcony and immediately took to reading their books on the bench outside. The kitchen had room to spread out and we looked forward to cooking with food from the local markets.
We arrived in Tigre already hungry and as evening arrived, we were in need of sustenance for our mortal forms. In our search for a restaurant, it really hit home that their dinner hours in Argentina were drastically different from what we were accustomed to. Many restaurants typically close between 3 and 8 pm, which happens to coincide with the hours of 99% of our family’s dinners for the last 10 years. We eventually found a place that would serve us food at 6pm and we were all overjoyed. As we waited for our dinner to arrive, we got to watch the passing boats on the Rio Tigre and the people strolling along the riverwalk.
Our arrival in Buenos Aires coincided with the start of their summer, just as the depth of winter was setting in at home in the US. With the summer season here, we are getting to enjoy the beautiful fresh fruits and vegetables that the area has to offer. It seems that on every block of the city, you can find a “fruteria y verduria”, or green grocer. Oranges for 150 pesos/kg, pears as big as your head, sweet and juicy honeydew melons, and all sorts of summer squashes, fresh greens, sweet corn on the cob, various potato varieties, and carrots the way they should look. One of our favorite new and local finds are zapallitos (zah-pah-shee-toes), which are a summer squash akin to a zucchini, but round and more firm. They taste almost the same, but do not seem to get soft and mushy as easily when you cook them. The eggs are as fresh as you can find them, where they are sold at ambient temperature and when you crack them, they have the deepest orange yolks that only rival what we have been able to get at home from the Crets family hen house. Needless to say, we are eating well.
Argentinos also enjoy their local herbal tea, yerba mate. You will often see the locals toting their mate (the cup), bombilla (the special straw), and thermos, to sip their tea. There is ritual and processes that add to enjoying your yerba mate and one includes sharing it with friends or family. Starting with Tigre, yerba became Jon’s preferred caffeine delivery mechanism and had been a great way to start the morning and carry through for most of the day. Like coffee, yerba seems to be an acquired taste, but one that we are taking to. For Jon, it seems to be the ritual that he needs to proclaim the start of the day and when he washes out the mate in the mid afternoon thoughts of dinner may begin. Yes, Jon now has another new quirky hobby. Let’s see how many he collects over this next year.
Yerba mate ‘equipaje’: mate (the cup), bombilla (the special straw), thermos, electric kettle with a mate setting to get the water to the perfect not too hot temperature, and a container for storing the dry mate.
Toting your ‘equipaje’ to the plaza in the evening seems to be a popular evening practice of the local gente.
For dessert, alfajores and dulce de leche are probably the best known in Argentina. Alfajores consist of two cookies sandwiching dulce de leche. Dulce de leche literally translates to the “sweet of milk”, which is a combination of sugar and milk that are slowly heated and stirred together over the course of several hours into a smooth caramel. Alfajores can include other types of sweets such as chocolate, caramel, or meringue, and in some instances the entire alfajor can be completely dipped in chocolate. They are a decadent dessert that would satisfy any sweet tooth.
Alfajores in a store front in the Belgrano neighborhood closer to the heart of BA.
We kept things low key in our first day in Tigre. Everything about it seemed relaxing, and we all needed to recharge after our very full week in Buenos Aires. On our penultimate day in Tigre, we decided to stretch our legs with a walk through Puerto de Frutos, a large open air market with everything from handcrafted wood furniture to refrigerator magnets. From there we took a boat tour on the river delta. The residents of the delta are completely reliant upon the systems of canals and boats for everything: food, fresh water, trash pickup, and recreation. Many people could be seen sitting in the shade waterside or relaxing at the ends of their docks and swimming with their children. Along the waterways, the main channel contained the long boats that were shuttling people and goods throughout the delta while rowers and kayakers were out and about for their Sunday strokes.
Our weekend in Tigre was great getaway to recharge the batteries before our return to Buenos Aires. We were headed for the hip barrio of Palermo to spend a few days before flying out to see other points in Argentina. A week and a half later, we would be headed to one of our most anticipated destinations, Chilean Patagonia… or so we thought…