Leaving downtown Buenos Aires, we took the commuter train from the Retiro station to the suburbs. Retiro station is a French-style building that was designed and built by British architects and engineers in 1909 and finished in 1915. The steel structure for the building was made in England and assembled in Argentina and for many years it was considered one of the most important buildings structurally in all of South America. Today, although somewhat shabby it is a National Monument in Argentina as it is nearly 100 years old. It was the British who built the railroad system in Argentina which still functions quite efficiently today.
We boarded the Tigre train, along with many other Argentines heading out of the city for the day. As we made our way past Palermo Park, the Palermo Race Course, and the the familiar stops of Belgrano, Nunez, Vicente Lopez, and Olivos to La Lucila, I began my own journey into the past. Arriving in La Lucila on a quiet Saturday morning of a four day holiday weekend, I looked around taking in the neighborhood shops by the train station, the tall shady trees - the sauces (willows) and the flowering palo borrachos (drunken sticks literally), the jacaranda trees and the fragant eucalyptus, as well as the brick houses built close together but surrounded by high walls for privacy and the persianas (shades on the outside of windows) drawn down on hot summer days. I was closer to the home I remember in the 1950's.
Eva and Brian met us in La Lucila, and in typical Argentine fashion we began our visit at an outdoor cafe with a cafe cortado (small coffee with frothed milk) and a plate full of media lunas (croissants). Eva is a lively, short woman, who talks nonstop and exudes a warmth that draws you in immediately. She seems to have boundless energy while Brian is much quieter with a kind of English reserve which he maintains from having grown up in the Midlands of England. Getting reacquainted after many years requires a lot of "do you remember?" and "what was the name of?" and "donde esta?", and other such conversation which Eva and I carried on all day in our own version of Spanglish. I would start a sentence in Spanish and then she would interject a few words in English and so we went along becoming reacquainted. I had in hand photos of our fourth grade class and Eva immediately recognized all our classmates and teachers I had forgotten and told me where they are now, mostly scattered between Argentina and the U.S..
Eva and Brian took us by car from La Lucila to the Tigre for the day, about a half hour drive further out through the suburbs of Martinez, Acassuso, where I grew up, and past San Isidro to the Tigre Delta. The Tigre which I learned is named for jaguars, which were called tigers, that once roamed this area, is a huge five thousand square food delta which flows into the Rio de La Plata and separates Argentina and Uruguay. Many years ago this area was out in the country and was full of farms that grew wonderful fruit. My mother used to regularly drive out to Tigre just to buy baskets of 100 fresh oranges that she would bring home and the maids would squeeze for our daily fresh breakfast juice.It also was a place where many Argentines had weekend cottages to escape the city. Eva told me all those farms are gone and replaced by what is today a very popular tourist area.
There is little I recognized about the Tigre because it has had a renaissance in the past ten years after a long decline. The municipality of Tigre has built new high rise apartments in the town and many of the old homes have been converted to hotels and B & B's. Now the area around the train station is built up into restaurants and instead of the old fruit market there are now shops and a very large open area of stalls selling lots of handicrafts and especially wicker furniture, baskets, dried flowers, leather goods, artisanal food, and other Argentine souvenirs. Eva says it's a place she likes to go to buy unusual gifts for people.
There is much of the British character still out in the Tigre with some mock Tudor homes and clubhouses, and lots of rowing clubs which is a popular sport. It was the British who enjoyed these country cottages as a getaway from the city life and which had whimsical names perhaps copied from cottages back home in England. The only way to get to these weekend homes is by lancha or boat as they are all on islands that are spread throughout this Delta area. We took a colectivo lancha which is the local public boat transport for an hour ride past what are now many upscale larger homes built throughout these islands. Argentines now spend weekends and summers out in this area on their docks or their well manicured shady lawns in the relaxing. There are camping areas and private clubs throughout the Tigre and a resurgence of hotels and spas one can stay at for a weekend.
Everything has to be brought by boat for the weekend and as we traversed the small rivers up and down and around the islands we saw the floating almacen or grocery store on a boat that brings supplies, the ambulance boat, the police boat, and all the services one might need. Lots of river traffic interspersed with private small motor boats and large yachts. It is no longer a quiet sleep place but a very desirable and popular destination for a quick getaway from city life.
For me, it is a special experience to go back over fifty years to recreate a childhood in this far away country. It is the first time I have done such a thing. But what seems most important and makes it real is to come back to friends like Eva who live here and who knew me then.
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