MORE TIGRE, The Delta City of Argentina

Kevin blogs:

AMBER AT THE ART MUSEUM IN TIGRE

Imagine a river flowing into a huge bay, but before it does, it splits in two. Then, each smaller river splits 4 times, then they each split 10 more times, etc etc until you have 150 miles of criss crossing rivers and canals, creating hundreds if not thousands of little islands. Many of the islands have houses on stilts, why stilts? Right! the rivers overflow their banks on occasion. But why would the rivers overflow their banks? Because huge winds coming in from Uruguay and the bay prevent the waters from flowing out to the sea and the water backs up and floods the islands. It was very interesting to see how the people live in these conditions, traveling in boats and canoes along the both narrow canals (some only wide enough for one canoe) and bigger rivers carrying huge boats filled with tourists. Our hostel was bordered by 2 rivers, and I could run around the property in 3 minutes, so 10 loops was a 30 minute run! At night we sat around the fire speaking with the French and Argentine people, drinking wine (even Amber!), speaking 3 languages. That is what traveling is all about!

AMBER IN A CANOE IN FRONT OF THE YOUTH HOSTEL

Amber and I took 2 canoes from the hostel and took a 2 hour tour, down tranquil canals, seeing the interesting houses on stilts, some just shacks and some more modern and fancy. We were invited to a bar-b-que where you heard we tasted cow brain! Tasted like tofu! Mario said it had lots of cholesterol, but who should be afraid of dying?! I took a taste to be polite, that was enough.

KEVIN RUNNING 10 TIMES AROUND THE HOSTEL

We had an exciting trip back to Buenos Aires, we had a bus to catch so of course we left very early with plenty of time. When we got to the train station, it was closed with train problems! So we walked to another train station, it was very crowded but we got on (only 35 cents to ride one hour), but half way to town there was a small explosion and the train filled with smoke! It stopped and everyone got off. A half hour later another train came and picked us up, and we barely made the bus.

The bus was a 2 story and Amber and I had the top floor front! It was scary as the trucks were zooming by Amber´s seat so I made her move. We saw 2 movies and slept, a little, arriving in Mendoza at 7AM. We walked to a few hostels and found one we liked. For $15 you share a room with bunk beds, but there is free internet, the Olympics on TV, comfy couches in a living room and other people around to talk to. A South Korean guy gave us some travel tips for Chile where he has been traveling for 7 weeks. Others have been traveling for 9 months, through Bolivia and Ecuador.

Today August 11 we walked around the ugly town of Mendoza. Latin and South Americans throw their litter everywhere, dont they care how it makes their city look? We hadn´t eaten all day and found a perfect vegetarian restaurant, all you can eat for $7, just what we needed! Vegies! No more cow intestines, kidneys or cow brain, please!

Amber is a joy to travel with. On the train ride to Buenos Aires from Tigre she spoke with an old lady in Spanish the whole way. Her picture book is getting filled up with drawings of mostly people she sees in the trains, or views by the lake. She struck up a real friendship with Guillermo (pronounced Guishermo - the Argentines pronounce sh for ll).

We are at one side of the Andes, about to go up into them. Tomorrow we will go to Uspullata, where they filmed 7 years in Tibet, cant wait! All is good hasta luego!