Tigre

(July, 2007). Getting to know Tigre. On one occasion I had bought a mini-tourism guide that a newspaper had once released as a collection of various places; the first one came free and then I bought the rest. The collection was called "Visual Guides of Argentina" by Clarín. So I used this little book as a guide, which is very useful because it contains many illustrations and itineraries.

My father and I went together. We left early, around 8:00 AM, and took the train departing from Retiro station to Tigre station. The ticket cost 0.95 pesos, and the trip took approximately 40 minutes.

The final station, Tigre, is very well maintained, I suppose because it is a tourist destination. The rest of the stations range from fair to poor.

From here, we began exploring a small part of Tigre. The name comes from the early days, before urbanization, when the area was populated by jaguars and panthers, also known as American tigers.

Leaving the station from the left side, there is a small roundabout, a bunch of flags, and a river—specifically the Tigre River—with a bridge crossing it and leading to the other side onto General San Martín Avenue. Without crossing, continuing along General Bartolomé Mitre Street, you find the Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Fluvial Station and a sort of park along the river.

The river water is black; at first glance, you can tell it is heavily polluted. Not a single aquatic bird can be seen, nor any coming down to drink water.

A major problem for islanders is precisely the lack of drinking water. But that is an issue when you venture deeper into the Delta; here, the pollution seems to come from industrial waste and sewage, from what I read.

You see many signs with the message "Water not suitable for human consumption."

At the exit of the train station, you see some buildings from which I imagine you must have a very nice view of the area, especially the delta region.

We walked and I took the first photos. The sun was coming out—a strong sun right in front of us. We crossed the bridge and walked along the Fluvial Station, where they were preparing the characteristic passenger boats to start the day's trips. Being a Sunday, there would be much more people compared to other days. In the waters of the Delta, and especially in the Tigre area, you can see a great variety of watercraft: local and tourist passenger riverboats (lanchas colectivas), sports boats, canoes, kayaks, coast guard (Prefectura) boats, rowboats, and timber transports, among others.

In the photograph is a cargo transport vessel, in this case for logs. It was commonly known as a timber barge (barcaza maderera), and I found it difficult to find its correct name. On some websites, this type of vessel is called a river timber ship. In the port, there are three docks, one of which is for unloading logs. These vessels transport lightweight logs, willow and poplar, with the waterline coming flush with the river water. These logs come from plantations in the interior of the islands and supply the forestry industry, from planting to transformation into objects.

The Fluvial Station functions as a boat terminal—passenger riverboats for transportation through the Delta area and all its islands. There are three or four companies that own transport boats, and they are mostly, at least the ones we saw, of two classes: some "traditional" (or older) style and others more modern in their shapes. The ones I call traditional or old are those brown, low, flat boats with small windows, appearing to be made mostly of wood. They are designs from the 1940s. The more modern ones are larger in size, have more rows of seats, are colored black and white, and appear to be made of metal. I am not familiar with boats and their technical characteristics; I am rather giving the impression from just observing them and from what I read on the web. As a boy, I had the opportunity several times to see the boats cross the Paraná River that I call traditional or old, but I had never boarded one. This time I had the opportunity and we took a brief tour on one of them, which I will talk about later.

Right there at the station, in the center of it, in the middle of a park surrounded by lampposts, stands the Statue of Sarmiento.

The Statue of Sarmiento is located in the Sarmiento Promenade, which leads to the Fluvial Station. The statue is in a park surrounded by grass with green signs warning "I am growing. Do not step on me."

This tribute work by the Municipality of Tigre to Domingo Faustino Sarmiento was made in 2000 by Ernesto Bertedor using the lost-wax bronze technique, with a height of 2.80 meters.

We looked around for a bit; there are many offers for trips to the interior of Tigre, there are campsites and everything related to tourism. Then we found a kind of plaza. I was somewhat disoriented because the guide I had brought did not match what I was seeing at the location itself. After looking and looking at the guide, I realized: my guide only showed the Tren de la Costa station and not the Tigre station, which was why something didn't quite add up.

We left the Fluvial Station and asked a car-watcher (cuida-coches) about the Puerto de Frutos. He indicated it was five blocks from where we were, so since it wasn't far, we walked.

Around the area, there are many houses and/or buildings with a particular style, typical of past eras. I took photos of some of them.

At the corner of General Bartolomé Mitre and Coronel Pizarro, there is a small plaza.

It is the Naval Prefecture Square. A plaque indicates "Tribute of the Community of Tigre to the Naval Prefecture." It is very small. It overlooks the river, features three flagpoles at the front, and a small monument, very common in naval matters: what appear to be two concrete sails, and on the back wall, two crossed anchors.

My interest was to see the Puerto de Frutos because I remembered seeing it once in a primary school textbook, and that was where my interest in said port was born. Since we were there, I wanted to see it, though the passing of the years had changed everything.

As we arrived, we crossed other tracks, and that's when I realized that the guide marked the Tren de la Costa station, which is why I was somewhat disoriented at the beginning of the tour.

There was a police patrol car driving around in circles; you saw it pass often, but that is because it is a tourist area, and that's what it's all about—protecting the revenue that tourism leaves behind.

The curbs of the sidewalks were starting to fill up with parked cars; a lot of people.

We crossed the tracks and arrived straight at the Puerto de Frutos. Of course, it is now an enclosed compound with buildings that look like well-kept warehouses, and inside there are retail shops—an entire fair. They were just opening; it must have been around 10:00 AM.

We reached the last dock, which was the one dedicated to timber vessels. This is the third dock, as I mentioned before. Then we walked back past the second one, which was the fruit dock (dársena de los frutos), where islanders used to arrive in their grocery boats (lanchas almacén or lanchas almaceneras) to sell their fruits and vegetables. This was very common in the past; nowadays there are greater options in supermarkets, although some boats of this type still arrive. You could see one of the boats with its fruits and vegetables, and also its scale. But the reverse journey is very common: grocery boats that supply the islanders, and these boats already carry a larger quantity of products, from meats to gas cylinders. I could see a boat full of gas cylinders, and several others with their canvas covers hiding the goods they transport into the interior of the delta.

In Puerto de Frutos there is a fair with quite a few stalls. In this fair, which functions as a large market, various products were offered, such as the wicker sales stalls characteristic of the place. It was Sarmiento who planted the first wicker rod to start the exploitation of the activity.

We walked through a few sales stalls of the fair—very few—and took a walk around the last dock. There are also food places in the area.

From the last dock we visited—which would be the first counting from the entrance—you could see some rides of the Parque de la Costa, which is none other than an amusement park.

We left the Puerto de Frutos and walked back along the tracks, about two blocks, until reaching the Tren de la Costa station. Right in front of that station is the Trilenium Casino, a building I took a photo of, and at the end is the entrance to the Parque de la Costa, where lines of kids waiting to enter could be seen.

On the way from Puerto de Frutos to the Fluvial Station, along General Bartolomé Mitre Avenue, I took a photo of a building without knowing anything about it.

Later I learned that it was the Buenos Aires Rowing Club Argentino.

There is nothing particularly special about it; it just caught my attention and I photographed it.

This bust has a plaque that says Brown, a tribute to Admiral Guillermo Brown, considered the father of the Argentine Navy. This is located somewhere I don't remember exactly, past the flurial station. Then there is another one, also in Tigre, on Victorica Promenade.

That day, a kind of protest was being prepared regarding the issue of the pulp mills located in Uruguay on the banks of the Uruguay River—a conflict that has been going on for some time and is still unresolved between both countries. (Updated to 2014, the conflict lasted from 2005 to 2010).

Rather, these people were selling some food and informing people passing by about the issue with flyers and their flags. After midday, they were no longer there and had withdrawn.

The idea was to visit the museums. According to my guide, the first one we were going to find was the Naval Prefecture Museum, then the Reconquista Museum, and finally the Naval Museum. The truth is that the guide grouped them all together and did not respect the streets and distances, and we didn't easily find any of them.

We wandered around until we found a sort of pedestrian walkway on the coast—it was the coast of the Luján River. While walking, a waiter handed us a flyer to eat a barbecue (parrillada), and right then an indicator sign appeared stating that it was Victorica Promenade, another tourist spot that was in my guide, and according to it, the Naval Museum was nearby. Indeed, a block further on, it appeared. We went inside and spent about an hour or a little more exploring it, then we left and went to visit the Reconquista Museum. (I will talk about each of them on another occasion).

The other bust of Admiral Guillermo Brown that I mentioned before. This one is located on Victorica Promenade.

Then we walked back and had lunch at the restaurant whose flyer the waiter had given us a few hours earlier. From there we went back to the Fluvial Station, and it must have been around 2:30 PM.

We passed by the Monument to the Rower. A work inaugurated in 1972. Located at the streets Lavalle and Paseo Victorica, right at the corner where said Promenade begins, at the intersection of the Tigre and Luján rivers.

It has a plaque that reads: "The Community of Tigre to those who brought glory to Argentine rowing. November 1982." And then in the lower part around it are the plaques of 15 historical rowing clubs with their respective foundation dates, along with a significant number of flagpoles. The locality of Tigre as the "cradle of Argentine rowing" and "provincial capital of Argentine rowing."

In the photograph I uploaded to the blog, it came out dark because it was taken against the light. Even so, I liked it; the figure is well appreciated, and above all the characteristic oar. You can barely see three flagpoles, one with the Argentine flag, another with the prefecture flag.

Here, in the photograph, there is a bust with an inscription on its plaque. I don't know what it is about; I didn't take notes nor do I remember.

It is located at the corner of Libertador General San Martín Avenue and Oliveiro Cesar Street. Along Libertador Gral. San Martín Ave., a boulevard extends, consisting of four small plazas. Each plaza has palm trees—a total of 25 palm trees. These palm trees were planted on May 25, 1910, celebrating the Centennial of the May Revolution and on the occasion of the visit made for those celebrations by Infanta Isabel of Spain. It is also known as Infanta Isabel Boulevard.

We continued walking along Libertador General San Martín Avenue, just before crossing the bridge over the Tigre River, at the end (or beginning) of the Infanta Isabel Boulevard, stands a Monument to the Grenadier.

Behind it are three flagpoles with the Argentine, Buenos Aires Province, and Tigre flags.

At the corner of Lavalle and Libertador, almost in front of the Train Terminal, this building in the photograph was located. It was the former headquarters of the Club Atlético Tigre. This large house was the Quinta Cobo-Anchorena, built in 1879 in Italianate architecture.

I comment on this photograph in the past tense because the building was demolished around 2008.

Having arrived back at the Fluvial Station, we waited for one of the riverboats to depart and bought a ticket for the next one, which left at 3:30 PM. A 1-hour trip cost $11 and covered 15 km through the Delta. The Delta covers 250 km². We chose one of the old boats, the wooden ones, approximately from the 1940s model. Luckily, the boat didn't fill up with passengers like the previous one did. I sat next to a window that was open; I froze with the cold, but I liked seeing the scenery uncovered by glass. A woman with a microphone acted as a guide and pointed out the places to us. The space is small. The first thing they indicate to us on the boat is the location of the life jackets, which, thank God, are not frequently used. And the tour began. I took several photos and filmed quite a bit, which caused me to run out of camera memory. But luckily, it was enough to record the entire tour.

When the boat departs, you can see that another one leaves at the same time, or at least throughout the tour, you could see another boat from a different company making these trips. I suppose they leave in pairs—I imagine in case something happens—but the truth is I don't know. I don't know if it was just coincidence, but the fact is that both left together and returned together with a fairly close distance between each other, always in sight of one another.

At the beginning, a few meters after the boat leaves the Tigre River and enters the Luján River, the water changes color, going from black to brown, and this remains so throughout the tour, even when entering smaller canals. Brown is the color that characterizes the Paraná and Uruguay rivers; if I remember correctly, this is due to the sediments carried by the riverbed.

In the photograph, you can see the Regatas La Marina Club, a private sports club. It is observed from the coast of the city of Tigre; it is located on the opposite bank.

Thus, when the boat departs, it is the first thing we see.

At the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki (Finland), two Argentine rowers won a gold medal; one of them practiced at this club.

What a pity about the advertising sign that completely blocks the visibility of its architecture and the surrounding landscape. In the photograph, you can also see a private boat with a small roof, and a little further away, a rowboat with a rower.

I knew these rowboats by the name guigue, and now reading about it, I learn that guigues are boats specific to the islanders, perhaps with origins dating further back to indigenous peoples. They are watercraft carved from a single piece, not very stable, between 1.5m and 4m long. Generally, a ceiba log was used (although also other trees like pine). Over time, construction improved and they began using wood and sheet metal—no longer a single carved log, but something artisanal and later industrial.

In short, I found that this is what these rowboats are commonly called. Something that seemed common to me for so many years, which my father told me—that these rowboats are called guigues—surprisingly, now that I am looking for information about it, I find it difficult.

The first thing I must say is that the word guigue is not found in the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE).

So the search would have to be narrowed down, but narrowed down to what? To local language? Possibly an Argentineism? Or perhaps a word used in the Latin American region or somewhere in it? Or is it a word whose root comes from another language? From some indigenous language? Living or lost? The truth is I don't know.

The little I found is:

• A dictionary definition that marks the word as specific to Argentina:GUIGUE. Argentina. Long, narrow, and light boat. (Diccionario Espasa Calpe. Vol. 27. 1925 Edition)
• Then, an article or book from 1878, "Semántica: o, Ensayo de lexicografía ecuatoriana, con un apéndice sobre nombres nacionales compuestos de raíces quichuas" by Gustavo Lemos Ramírez:http://archive.org/stream/semnticaoensay00lemouoft/semnticaoensay00lemouoft_djvu.txt And it says:GUIGUE. M. Term unknown in other peoples of Ecuador, and perhaps of America; in Guayaquil, this name is given to the balsa log on which bathers straddle and steer it with oars to where they wish.
• And in another Naval History article, titled "Las Barcas Carboneras de la Armada 1888-90" by Deep Sea Captain Emilio Biggeri - Published in the Naval Center Bulletin:http://www.histarmar.com.ar/InfHistorica-6/BARCAS%20CARBONERAS/BarcasCarbonerasARA.htm It says (referring to another ship while describing what it carries):Boats: A clinker-built guigue with five teak benches and an aft cockpit seat, hoisted astern by two wooden davits.
• In a Wikipedia entry referring to the sinking of the High Seas Torpedo Boat "Rosales" in 1892, referring to the rescue boats carried by the torpedo boat, it says: The two available rescue boats, the commander's guigue and a dinghy.
• In a 1928 Chilean dictionary titled "Chilenismos. Apuntes Lexicográficos" by J. T. Medina:http://www.memoriachilena.cl/archivos2/pdfs/MC0012917.pdf It defines as (pages 179-180):GUIGUE. M. (From English.) Very long and light watercraft, like a float boat. This name is given especially to the boat of the captain of a merchant ship when it has a narrow beam and unpinned oars.

With all this, it seems that the word guigue is in customary use right here in Argentina.

Continuing with the chronicle of that day's trip through Tigre, the boat tour through the river waters continued its course. The female guide on her loudspeaker narrated the trip for us, pointed out some clubs, talked to us about the guigues, showed us a private house that I didn't catch what it was about, a Catholic church attended by some islanders, a school, Sarmiento's house-museum, a private land designed by the landscape architect Thays, the reeds, the wicker (which was brought to the place precisely by Sarmiento), the palisades so that the water doesn't eat away the earth, a house on the verge of collapsing for not having raised and maintained the palisade, the casuarinas (which are those trees that islanders plant because their roots intertwine and keep the earth contained and firm), the intersections with other rivers and canals (telling us that one of them leads directly to the Paraná River at a distance of 8 km, another to a distance I don't remember, leading to the Río de la Plata), and finally bringing us back to end the tour.

In the course of the tour through the Delta, you see things like this: a sort of... what is that? I don't know. It looks like a strange or unusual large boat; at least in my case, I had never seen one. It well seems to have two floats on both sides and a tank in the center. Or it could also function as a rather rudimentary tanker ship—a vessel for filling in river banks. In fact, looking closely at the yellow sign on the house, it says "Landfills. Canals. Dikes." Obviously, it is possible that such a vessel functions for those purposes, but neither can a direct relationship be established between a sign and that vessel which I don't know how to define.

You can barely see it, behind the trees, with a red roof and white walls: a Chapel of the Catholic Church. It is the Chapel of Our Lady of Luján, located on the Espera Stream. About this stream, I copy verbatim what I found on the following webpage: http://tigre.galeon.com/textos/geograf/rioarrca.htm

"Its name is due to the wait ships made waiting for the tide to be able to have draft. It is approx. 13 km long and navigable. It connects the Sarmiento River and the Cruz Colorada."

In a sector of the delta, Sarmiento bought a plot of land and built a house. Today that house is a museum and is protected by a sort of glass capsule. This house was declared a National Historic Monument in 1966 and later in 1989 a Provincial Historic Monument.

"It is located on the coast of the Sarmiento River. Formerly called Abra Nueva, it has a length of 18 km, navigable in its entire length."http://tigre.galeon.com/textos/geograf/rioarrca.htm

Finally, we returned on the Tren de la Costa. It is a new train, a formation with only two cars but quite well kept, running a short, tourism-oriented route. Thus, the ticket costs $5 and ends at Maipú station. At the exit, there is a sort of shopping center, but not as typically known, as it only has a few retail stores. There you transfer to another train line, a circuit that starts right there with Bartolomé Mitre Station to end at Retiro Terminal.

Apparently, the machine in the photograph would be a second-generation FGV 3700 Series. http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serie_3700_de_FGV