“Ninguna otra ciudad [Tigre], que yo sepa, linda con un secreto archipiélago
de verdes islas que se alejan y pierden en las dudosas aguas de un río tan lento
que la literatura ha podido llamarlo inmóvil.”
“I know of no other city [Tigre], beautiful with a secret archipelago
of green islands, lost in unknown waters of such a slow river
that literature called it frozen.”
by Jorge Luis Borges
On the last day of our stay in Buenos Aires, we took the costal train to Tigre, a short distance northeast of Buenos Aires. We wanted to explore the Delta del Paraná, a 5,000 square-mile alluvial basin where the Paraná River splits into branches, canals, streams, dead-ends, marshes, lakes and brilliant green islands before emptying into the Rio de la Plata.
We expected six hours of sedately encountering nature. Considering that we had missed the penguins (the gun jammed), we wanted to encounter “South American Nature” just as it appears in public television shows with photogenic birds, phosphorescent insects, killer fish, gauchos and of course the occasional jaguar [or tigre in Spanish]. This is why we dragged the binoculars over 10,000 miles.
We realized that the tour might be a bit different when our pilot/guide, Sergio, showed up in an inflatable zodiac boat with an oversized outboard-motor. Zodiacs are great for traveling in the shallow, brown waters of the slow moving Delta. Zodiacs are also great for low level flying, slamming across waves from the wakes of other power boats fly out of unseen canals to crisscross your path, as the zodiac bobs and weaves to take the path of least resistance and maximum splash.
In his 40s, Sergio is a roving physical education teacher at five different schools, as well as an afternoon instructor of the tango and a weekend guide to the waters where he grew up. His wife, a teacher of English, has only two jobs. It seems that teachers are poorly paid throughout the Americas.
The Delta is divided by its river branches into three sections. The first section is primarily residential. It is small town whose only roads are water, a suburban version of Venice. On either side of the canal, the houses stand on 8-foot stilts, holding them above the floods of spring. Their yards are cut from the forest with machetes and lawnmowers. Each property has its own wooden dock complete with dogs and old men fishing for their dinners.
Long, narrow boats take children to and from schools. The local store is a docked fishing boat, selling necessities like dry goods, snacks and wine. You come alongside the boat and ring a large brass bell to attract the shop girl’s attention.
About 4,000 people live in the Delta, but most of the houses are vacation homes for people from the capital. Here and there, there are the old grand homes and hotels built in Argentina’s Bella Epoca. Our guide points out one hotel, just concrete bones now, where Peron and Evita are said to have stayed.
And here and there, there are houses occupied by paracaidistas (parachutists), poor people who have fallen from the sky to land on someone else’s property to live in someone else’s home. Our guide says that the legal process to evict these squatters is so lengthy and costly that many owners simply abandon their property.
The Delta’s other two sections form the Paraná Delta Biosphere Reserve. It appears to be unpopulated, but it is far from untouched. Along the major branches of the river, there are yachts, ocean going ships, commercial fishing boats, water-ski boats, dredging ships, jet skis, tour boats, speed boats, police boats, and the dead ships, pitted red skeletons abandoned to rust when their maintenance costs got too high.
Along the smaller canals, there are electric purple bougainvilleas, banks of white flowers that mark the arrival of fall, and rafts of water hyacinth whose dirt-filled roots work to purify the water.
Occasionally, there is the debris of a small time logging operation in the willow forest. Most surprisingly, there are no sounds of birds or of insects singing I-am-here, I-am-here. It has turned cold and we can see a black storm coming our way.
On our way back, Sergio asks if we want to stop at any of the waterfront restaurants along the way. It is at this point we had to admit that we (ok, I) screwed up. We only had $300 argentine pesos ($34 dollars), which was not enough to buy lunch at a place with a table cloth. And roadside stands selling panchos (hot dogs) did not seem attractive.
Then Sergio tells us that he knows a place were we can have steak, fries and wine for the $300 pesos: the tour company’s house in the delta with him as the chef. He took us to an overgrown, somewhat ramshackle house where leftover furniture comes to die and husbands come to hide. An informal men’s clubhouse complete with the compulsory weeds growing in the flower box and empty wine bottles, many empty wine bottles.
It seems that grilling in Argentina is a mandatory male skill that reflects directly one’s manhood. Sergio upheld Argentine honor with a very good steak and grilled potato slabs. The malbec was good and the red chimichurri excellent. It was an agreeable day in the Delta.
With the wine, Sergio began to tell us of his passion — teaching the tango. Whenever tango music popped up on the tape deck, he would jump up to demonstrate the steps with sweeping, stylish moves in the classic tango square.
In recent years, he said, the tango, the national dance of Argentina, was being forgotten. All young people learned to do is shake, as he mimicked someone having a seizure. He was very proud that he had led a successful campaign to get the tango taught to every high school student in the area.
Sergio spoke about what he saw as Argentina’s bigger problem: the lack of an Argentina identity. I’m half Spanish mixed with Italian, he explains. My wife’s heritage is English. We identify with our separate cultures, not with Argentina. Like the Pope, he is Argentinean but first Italian.
I thought strange as no one could ever mistake Sergio as anything but an Argentino.
