Finally getting to why we ended up in Nordelta and the crazy manufactured marina around the crumbling Wyndham hotel captured in “Well, how did we get here?“
One of the desk clerks at Hotel Magnolia is from Tigre and suggested we go see the river delta community and culture. People actually live on, in, and around the river delta. Here’s a map of how huge it actually is:
We spent two days on the river. The first day, we went to the boat terminal in Tigre to catch the local bus. Big wooden boats that are basically water busses leave on a regular schedule from the terminal and travel up the river. We bought round trip tickets for about $3 U.S. and traveled to Tres Bocas for a walk and lunch.
Every house along every river and channel has a dock out front. There are also bars, restaurants and resorts along the waterways. If you want a ride, just stick your hand out and flag down one that’s going in your direction!
Unfortunately, I did a poor job of capturing a lot of the river culture. we saw grocery store boats that deliver food and water to the houses as well as water boats filling cisterns, barges delivering construction materials, garbage boats, school bus boats–you name it, and they have a water version for the community. The river is the highway. Here’s a typical house. If this were on the market, we understand it would sell somewhere in the $250k region with a good dock and seawall. I really, really want one!!
We got off the boat in Tres Bocas, which had a restaurant and gas station. After a short walk on THE path that runs “through the neighborhood” (kind of a sidewalk on either side of a small creek with an occasional bridge to cross to the other side), we passed the afternoon in a lovely riverfront restaurant having grilled fish and arroz con calamari with, of course, a couple bottles of cerveza Quilmes. Here are a few pictures of main street and the neighborhood.
A few days later, we were lucky enough to book a kayak tour with El Dorado Kayak owned an operated by our guide Martin, who is a local and grew up on the river. We took his boat from Tigre about 45 minutes up river to his house (much further in then where we had gone previously on the water bus), where we started our kayak tour.
Martin speaks English fluently, and we learned a lot about river life during our time with him. We didn’t capture it, but he built his own house and runs his tours from there. He also brews really good beer, which he sells to the locals by the growler. He’s the proud father of a 3-month old son, and his wife makes and sells sandals. It’s a pretty good life by any measure. We talked about the failing school system, how much it would cost for private school for his son, and how the boat pool would work for getting him there. Instead of snow days, they have low tide days where it would be impossible to leave the channel and take kids to school.
Here’s Martin’s neighborhood where our kayak tour began. This is his buddy’s sailboat moored in the front yard. Even on the river, your friends and family are going to ask to park vehicles on your property. Martin’s house has good access to the main river out to the Atlantic Ocean.
We spent about two hours paddling before getting the boat back into town. It was a great day. We had dinner along the river in Tigre that night. Overall, our time in Tigre was very enjoyable and let us experience a river culture we would never have seen otherwise. It really is a unique way of living.
