Tigre, el Tercero Mundo, y un Perrito - pero no Asado

I woke up nice and early today expecting to enjoy a delicious asado (similar to an American BBQ, with various types of beef served) to celebrate Roxana’s eventual journey to the US. Since the asado was to be held in Parque Sarmiento, near the border of the province, four of us decided to taxi it there. We get to the park, pay the one peso (33 cent) admission fee, and start walking around looking for Roxana and her fiancé. There were tons of other asados there and the smells surrounding us were mouth watering. After about thirty minutes of going from group to group, we came to the realization that Roxana wasn’t there. None of us had credit on our phones to call her so Elias (one of my friends from the north of Argentina, Misiones) bought a card and rang her. Apparently, she left a message on his voice mail this morning at 8 am that it was cancelled due to possible rain, but he never got the message.

Of course, the four of us were starving by this point, so we asked for directions to a local parrilla (steakhouse), where we ordered a parilla libre (all you can eat grill). This included unlimited amounts of vacio (flank steak), chorizo (sausage), morcilla (blood sausage), grilled chicken, pork, cow kidneys and liver, and salad, all for a whopping $29.50 pesos (about ten bucks). We were in an area that extranjeros (foreigners) rarely venture into, so we experienced a delicious meal at a good price.

Since we were only (so we thought), a few minutes away from Tigre, we decided to catch a colectivo (local bus) there. Tigre is a charming city north of Buenos Aires that is very popular on weekends with porteños (those who live in the capital). It is a small and clean place that is situated in the delta of two rivers. It is also home to the largest amusement park in South America (90 pesos/30 dollars for a year’s pass!), a huge casino, and a fruit market that sells a lot more than fruit – collectibles, handicrafts, furniture, etc.

So, we hop on the colectivo and – wow – it was like we were transplanted back to Bolivia. My friend from BA, Gabriel (in the photo with me below, with our parillada) whispered over “welcome to the third world” when we got on the bus. Gabriel later told me that in Bolivia, it is common for the villagers to take their chickens, pigs, and other small animals with them on the colectivo. Fortunately, that wouldn’t play well in Buenos Aires city.

It got even worse when we got off (about a 10 minute drive from the heart of Tigre). There were tons of roaming homeless dogs, plenty of destitute people, and four totally lost strangers (two from Argentina and two from the US). Needless to say, the cameras went hidden deep into our pockets, as did the iPhones.

After trying to figure out which colectivo we needed to catch to take us to the nice part of Tigre, we gave up and hired a remis (private taxi). The next few hours were rather uneventful as we explored the city (and got major sunburns – I looked like a lobster after having spent 9 hours in the sun yesterday biking and all day today in the sun). In the fruit market, we lost Elias and had to backtrack to find him negotiating with a girl selling puppies. For 200 pesos (about 70 dollars) he bought a 40 day old English Setter on a whim. Dogs are immensely popular in Buenos Aires (as evidenced by the number of dog walkers and the fact that 99.9% of dog owners don’t clean up after their dogs, so walking down streets is like navigating a minefield).

With it approaching sunset, we (and the puppy) hightailed it back to the train station (no more third-world colectivos today, thank you) and boarded the train only to have the conductor tell Elias that no pets are allowed. So, Elias had to catch another train (the public train) back to Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, while Gabriel and I stayed onboard since we had already purchased our tickets.

The pictures below show our tasty lunch, shots from Tigre, and the still unnamed puppy (perrito).