Tigre with the Adams Family

Even before we left for Argentina our friend Hanno told me one of his favorite places when he lived in Buenos Aires was the Río de la Plata river delta area, Tigre. He described it to me and promised that we would visit when we met up in B.A. (for those who don't know him, Hanno is a physics teacher at Punahou School, who is spending his year-long sabbatical here with his family, having married a porteña, Paula, and having taught at the American school here before moving to Honolulu). Even though he described it well, I probably listened poorly (what's new!); I was totally unprepared for what we experienced!

After a 30+ minute drive along the Pan American Highway we arrived, parked, and headed over to board one of the boats that take travelers out to the many islands formed from the silt that accumulates in the delta.

Altogether there were nine of us, including Hanno & Paula; their kids, Sofía & Tim; Paula's mother, Blanca; and our family.

We arrived at one of the islands and began a short trek to a restaurant that I'm not sure anyone really knew existed. As far as I could tell, among the many houses, which Hanno told me aren't live-ins but used more to entertain or host visitors from the city wishing a day of R&R, some people have set up restaurants in the yard. As if we might decide one day to cook in our St. Louis Heights kitchen and then serve passers-by on backyard resin furniture...wait a minute, that sounds like when we entertain family!

The walk took us along a path made of stepping stones sunk into the silt-ground, sometimes turning into elevated wooden bridge structures that spanned small waterways, mostly running along the perimeter of the island, which was really just a short drop straight into the water, as if the island had been carved on its borders.

All the houses were elevated because the water levels change with the flow of the river, and some looked as if they would fall any minute while others seemed built by Tony Montana when he was really running the cocaína in Scarface.

We stopped at a modest house with a parilla in the garage and about ten tables set under trees in the front yard. Hanno immediately led me to the parilla and asked the men if we could stand and watch them cook all the meat. As usual, the at-first-gruff-looking men smiled immediately and launched into a friendly explanation of all the meats on the grill, with Hanno asking questions and me struggling but mostly succeeding to understand all of them.

Once we returned to the table Hanno and Paula ordered us all a family style lunch that included almost everything we saw on the grill, although I couldn't get the nerve to agree to the blood sausages that were hanging like plump purple plums above the smoldering keawe-like wood embers. With Blanca as the best grandmother one could ever imagine at a long lunch, entertaining all four children while we other adults sat (dare I say it's been almost spring-like here for the last week or so), we talked for about an hour-and-a-half and enjoyed being stuffed under the sun.

After such a great meal it's really important to go for a walk to digest, so someone suggested we take a walk around the island. Once again I had no idea who, if anyone, was in charge, and was totally contented to simply walk with Hanno and talk about Argentina. For the first half hour or so we were on a path similar to the one that took us to the restaurant, but sometime soon after we passed the last house and began to follow a small stream the stepping stones ceased to exist and there was only a worn path in the silt. No one seemed concerned so I kept walking until we hit a patch where the worn path was no longer dry(ish) and worn but rather a pool of mud. That got all the kids' attention, especially Jack, who by that point had already left the stones and slipped once, getting himself muddy, but I pointed out that he was already dirty and how much worse could it be...

Another thirty minutes later we were all slipping along in what might have been a jungle except that the trees weren't that thick and I didn't hear monkeys shrieking or anything. Nevertheless, we had to cross small streams on tree-trunk poles laid across the gaps - usually there were only two or three poles to walk on and with only one exception there was one that would serve as a handrail. By that point Jack had slipped at least three more times, as had almost everyone else, and Paula was kind enough to hold his hand.



Not that it always helped!

I have to admit that after about an hour of walking through the trees, I started to get a little worried. While occasionally we could hear the engines of boats, I could also see that the sun was getting lower, and even though we had a map on a photocopied piece of paper it didn't seem to be much more than a sketch of the island Quinn, Tim or Sofía might have produced with a charcoal pencil. What seemed really strange was the fact that every so often there were small recently deceased fish lying along the path for no apparent reason. But no blowpipe-wielding indigenous hunter jumped out at us and no one else seemed really concerned, so I kept my mild fears to myself.

Finally after about an hour-and-a-half we saw a line of houses, and while the stepping stones had yet to reappear I relaxed. We soon passed a man and a woman fishing (I have to interject and say that under no circumstances would I have ever eaten anything from that murky water, especially after Hanno had told me about chemical-dumping factories upriver, so I hope to high heaven they were fishing for sport) who told us that just a few days earlier the water had risen about three feet, surging from winds that I had missed while in Australia, and that explained the reason for the path being so waterlogged...as well as the puddles in yards

and the fish that had mysteriously died so far from the streams. They actually laughed at us for having walked so far. You can imagine how that felt, being laughed at by a couple fishing in mud! We were undaunted, though, especially the kids, who enjoyed slipping and sliding and even picking up debris left by the flood.

Before we got back on a boat to return to the mainland Blanca went into a small store to buy us all some water. Inside the shopkeepers scolded her for our walk, telling us that after floods there are even snakes that are washed around and disoriented, and that we could have really gotten hurt. I'm happy that she waited until after we were all home to share that with Paula, who kindly didn't pass the message on until the next morning!

All in all it was a great adventure, though. Jack, Quinn and Tim fell asleep on the boat ride back

(Paula was still taking care of Jack!)

and as we headed into the dock the moon was rising over the amusement park nearby and the sun was setting on an unforgettable day!