The river’s criss-crossing tributaries are the colour of milky tea. Weeping willow branches gently stir its surface, stilted wooden houses dot the banks and locals are dropped off at their island homes by a long, polished-wood boat – a water taxi. We are only 45 minutes by train from downtown Buenos Aires and yet, from here on, it’s waterborne transport only.
This is the Paraná delta, a 300km network of waterways that stretches from central Argentina to the gaping mouth of the River Plate. It’s a vast stretch of lush green land chopped into hundreds of islands by veins of water running in all directions. The islands on the northern edge of the delta, towards the border with Uruguay, are mostly uninhabited but, here, near the gateway town of Tigre, there’s a thriving community of around 4,000 residents – and many more on summer weekends.
On the edge of Greater Buenos Aires, 30km north of the centre, Tigre is where porteños (Buenos Aires locals) come to unwind. During my four years living in Argentina, this was my getaway, too. Aside from the year-round blue skies, those Saturday morning jaunts – a train ticket costs less than £1 – are probably what I’ve missed the most since returning to the UK.
The Argentinian capital is famous for turning its back on the River Plate – most of its buildings face away from it – but Tigre is where city dwellers reconnect with the water. Originally a port for fruit and timber exports, the Tigre delta enjoyed an early-20th-century belle époque as an elite tourist destination, before being unceremoniously dumped as Argentinians shifted their attentions to resorts on the Atlantic coast. Over recent years, it has been slowly bouncing back. That’s why the renovated Tigre Art Museum, with its stunningly ornate 1912 promenade, shares the riverfront with a creepy abandoned mansion that could be home to an Argentinian Norman Bates.
For years, I struggled to get my head around the area: it’s vast, and visitor information is scarce. For some time, I’d do what most visitors do: turn up at the fluvial (boat station), buy a ticket to an island restaurant, and while away most of the day eating, drinking and watching the river traffic from a comfortable deck. But what I wanted to know, as I watched the passing water taxis and occasional city-boy speedboats, was where were they all going?
The answer was to start exploring, and the best way to do it seemed to be by kayak. Friends and I would hire them from the rowing club opposite the boat station (puroremo.com.ar, about £10 a day) and we’d tentatively paddle across the main drag of the Luján River, which flows past Tigre towards the Plate. We always experienced a moment of mild panic when faced with intimidatingly large tour boats and ferries heading to Uruguay, but the moment we turned down a mysterious, shady side stream, all was calm. There’d be barely any boat traffic to negotiate – just a few fellow kayakers – so we could concentrate on some serious daydreaming. The backwaters of Tigre are the sort of place romantic types instantly want to move to. In your head, you abandon all practicalities and start picking out your dream home – the one where the family labrador comes bounding down the jetty, or the one with a rickety front porch that wouldn’t look out of place in the US deep south.
Come early afternoon, we’d sniff out an asado (barbecue joint) and put down our paddles for an hour or two. In these parts, when you want to eat, you just look for a sign and park your boat in a sandy landing bay. The options typically run from a full barbecue, with chitterlings and blood sausage, to choripán, a no-frills steak sandwich. Vegetarians might want to bring some back-up snacks, but some larger places do simple pasta dishes. You will be given a choice of “red, white or pink” sauce. Nothing is overly complicated around here.
On my first few kayaking trips, I would barely have digested my lunch before my uptight British ways would kick in and I’d start thinking about how best to beat the crowds at the train station. (The locals didn’t care much for foresight; they’d enjoy the sun and go when they were ready.) “Tranquiiila,” an Argentinian friend would say. Chill out. And so I learned the second most important thing about the delta. You can’t be a clock-watching daytripper if you want to see it at its best; you have to stay overnight.
Come evening, almost everyone leaves. This is when the city really feels a long way away. Darkness descends and you are left with only the sounds of the crickets, the occasional lone boat, and maybe the low hum of mosquitoes (hey, nowhere’s perfect).
One of my best finds for onda (the much-used Argentinian word for atmosphere) was Isla Escondida. The name – meaning hidden island – says it all. I told the water taxi driver that’s where I was heading and he dropped me on a wooden jetty. From there I walked away from the main riverfront, through an empty plot of land and found a white clapboard villa, built in 1892 and facing a totally secluded little stream.
As a guesthouse, it’s deliberately a little rough around the edges, its boho vibe underlined by artsy birdcages hanging from trees, Moroccan daybeds in the garden and a Thai-style floating cabin (available to rent). But the overall effect is full of charm and utterly romantic. My bedroom had an original bathroom, with an old claw-foot bath (a real hand-me-down, not a try-hard import). It also offers a day package (£44pp) which includes return boat transport, use of indoor and outdoor pools, yoga, fishing, canoes and a trouser-popping barbecue lunch.
It was after one of those lunches that I first went exploring on foot. On many of the islands, small groups of houses have formed into mini-communities. A trail by the waters’ edge led me first to a guy in his twenties who was practising aerial acrobatics on a big purple ribbon hanging from a tree; further round the bend, I found an artist’s ramshackle house, fronted by a huge sculpture of a jaguar’s head made from painted sheet metal (a nod to the big cats that once roamed these wilds, giving them the name Tigre).
This was the delta I had always wanted to get to know, with all its characters and eccentricities. The area has long been a draw for artists, writers and even heads of state. The house lived in by President Domingo Sarmiento until his death in 1888 is now a museum; famed Uruguayan architect Carlos Páez Vilaró used the delta as his muse for 30 years until his death last year. More poignantly, it was also an escape for many intellectuals and activists who later were “disappeared” during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Novelist Haroldo Conti was one of them and his little wooden house – still as he left it, with a desk beside the river – has been opened as a museum. (It’s accessible only by boat, on the Gambado stream – people find their way around here by giving the names of streams and cross-sections.)
Today’s Tigre, however, is moving on. There are new eco-friendly businesses, such as the Delta Terra centre, deep in the delta, offering low-footprint activities such as kayaking and photo safaris (from £5 a day, deltaterra.com.ar). And in a completely different vein, a recently built complex around a new marina upstream features chain hotels that wouldn’t look out of place in an airport. (I cannot fathom why anyone would choose to stay there when there is a Unesco-listed biosphere reserve just down the road.)
The delta proper, with all its wild beauty and lack of pretension, is easy to romanticise. I know there is more to it than meets a tourist’s eye. On my last visit, I found myself talking to Ramone, a maintenance man in one of the restaurants. “The part you see here is just the tip of it. Further up stream, where people still work on the land, there is no electricity and little has changed there in years,” he says. Before leaving, I take another look at the giant wall map at Tigre train station, which covers the whole labyrinth. In an average weekend, you’ll barely see a couple of inches of it. Despite so many return visits, I still feel I have barely scratched its surface.
Way to go
Getting there
Flights were provided by Journey Latin America (020-8747 8315, journeylatinamerica.co.uk), which has Lufthansa returns, via Frankfurt, from £750. Trains to Tigre (four an hour) run from Buenos Aires’ Retiro station (timetables at cferroviarios.com.ar)
Where to stay
Overnight stays at Isla Escondida (+54 11 5245 9770, islaescondidadelta.com.ar) cost about £104pp, including boat transfers, all meals and activities. For a free, or cheaper stay in Tigre, try guesthouse La Casona del Rio. If you are willing to muck in with chores, the Dutch-Argentine owners offer volunteer placements via WorkAway (workaway.info) – or you can be as idle as you please and just rent one of their cute themed rooms (from £26 a night B&B for two)
When to go
It’s usually about 28C and sunny in Buenos Aires in February; temperatures stay above 20C until May
What to do
If you are unsure about kayaking solo, group trips can be arranged with Urban Biking (+54 11 4314 2325, urbanbiking.com). A full-day guided bike ride from the capital plus a 90-minute kayaking trip costs about £70pp
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