Tigre: Fierce and Stuff, I Guess

Jeepers creepers pumpkin fleepers, I haven't posted in, like, FIVE days! Probably you thought I was dead or something! In fact, you probably orchestrated my death in order to collect on the insurance policy you secretly took out on me! Well, I'll have you know your plan failed miserably. I am alive and I defeated your assassin in hand-to-hand combat. You'll have to do better than that.

Last Saturday was like a metaphor for my whole entire life: I woke up not knowing what to do with myself, spontaneously decided to have an adventure without planning very well, got lost, got unlost, and had a generally very enjoyable time.

I decided spur-of-the-moment that Rachel and I were going to journey to a land called "Tigre," a place that I had heard of only in the lunatic ravings of my friend Lucas. (I'm kidding, he's not a lunatic, just Brazilian)

Before you vicariously live through me, here are a couple things about Tigre that might be factual (???).

1. Tigre is in the province of Buenos Aires, I think (maybe?). It had better be, because we're supposed to do paperwork in the international office when we leave the province and that didn't happen, sooooo. Also we probably stayed inside the boundary because Buenos Aires is enormous. It's bigger than the entire country of Uruguay.

2. Tigre has been descibed as "the Venice of Argentina." Its main tourist attraction is a series of canals in the delta of the River Plate. Many of the houses along the canals are only accessible by boat, and each home has a river-address and a particular name (as some people might name their cars).

A two-picture series entitled "Waiting for Rachel to wake up for, like, forever"

Do three chins make me look fat?

"Longing"

 

Anyway, on to the real stuff. Even though Tigre is over an hour away from the city, it can be reached by public bus. For a mere pittance (50 cents) we traveled to Rachel's future home, where she will buy a river shanty and acquire tetanus from climbing around on old ship carcasses. (Oh yeah, she's alive by the way. She should be languishing in bed, dying slowly from The Amoebs, but somehow her immune system overcame the vicious viruses she ingested at the River Plate. I, on the other hand, would never put myself at risk for something so silly like forcibly approaching stray animals to make them adore me.)

Along the river there were many little shops advertising boat cruises, but we are Real Tourists™ so we picked the first one we came to. After paying $7.50 US dollars each for a tour, we had about half an hour to wait before departure. During this time, we met someone who made me question my cat-favoritism.

 

JUST THINKING ABOUT THIS DOG IS MAKING MY HEART HAPPY AND SAD AT THE SAME TIME SHE WAS SO BEAUTIFUUUUUUUUL

 

But cats are still the best sorry bout it

 

 

On our river tour, jocular guide Jorge showed us six rivers and some of the weirdness they had to offer, like:



 

Tigre's version of public transit

Old buildings from, like, the 1920's or something

Rachel taking a selfie #shamefame

A casino converted into an art museum.

An island school, which the students are brought to by SCHOOL BOAT

Weird abandoned houses and boat carcasses

 

This house, encased completely in glass, once belonged to president Sarmiento.

There was a significant number of raised docks that protruded into the river. Many of these homes are accessible ONLY by boat. In a similar fashion, a lot of the houses were on stilts about seven feet above the ground to protect them from frequent flooding.

 

 

 

MOAR ADVENTURE:

Derring-do

"Bathing prohibited. Dangerous waters."

Dangit

 

To sum up, Tigre is so naturally beautiful that it kind of makes my heart hurt (like that dog). Though the day was chilly, it was sunny and thoroughly enjoyable. Rachel is set on returning to Tigre sometime before we go home in July.... she's sorta not joking about desperately wanting to live there. I'm pretty satisfied in the city.

 

Most important pic from the trip:

 

LOLZZZZZZZZ