Delta Tiger Spreewald

Today I wanted to be lazy and travel with public transportation, especially since my right ankle is acting up. It seems that 60km on asphalt in 3 days don't agree with it - wimp. 

So today I took the subway (Subte) to Retiro (central bus and train station towards the north/west). From there, I took the Mitretren to Mitre, where the train ends on one side of the street, you walk across it, and then you get on the Tren de la Costa - a complete nonsense that becomes even more absurd when you consider that there are 3 different track widths used in Buenos Aires 🤦‍♂️ so everyone runs on their own tracks. Well, you could also go directly from Retiro with the Tigre train, but that seemed less cool to me because with my route, you also get a glimpse of the Rio de la Plata and the BA skyline. Photo tip: especially near the Anchorena station, but I stayed on the train. 

So back to the story, if you have a Sube card (payment card), the train only costs half of the regular fare, 15 Pesos. With the card, you can actually use all means of transportation in the Greater BA area and in other regions of Argentina. 

When you arrive in Tigre, you practically stumble into an amusement park on the right and a huge casino on the right. From the Spreewald or rather Delta, which is supposed to be as big as the whole state of Thuringia, there is still nothing to see.

Now, you can go out on the right past the casino, cross a small bridge, and then take the first or second left to get to the Port de Frutas (Fruit Port) - this time, not Putas (prostitutes) - although I don't know, it's a mixture of a market for the Delta residents and kitsch for tourists. This is also where the floating supply boats dock, which provide the people in the Delta with everything they need - essentially floating hardware stores. A few boat tours also start from here. If you go left from the Costabahn train station (the direct line has a different station), you will go towards the center and the docks of the so-called Lanchas (basically water buses or taxis). My idea was to take a round trip on one of these Lanchas, so I bought a ticket at the counter and stood in line at the designated Muelle 3 (pier) at 1:30 PM. Only my boat was missing, all the others were leaving. The problem is that a ticket is only valid for the boat printed on it, so to put it shortly, I was contemplating three thoughts - throwing away the ticket and buying a new one, just leaving, or trying to argue at the counter. That's when my boat, the 'Jilguero', arrived. My first thought was Gigolo? but they probably just mispronounced Stieglitz - still mistaken! Well, it left an hour later, better than not at all. Then the Stieglitz (bird) started as if there was a fire below deck, and I thought, oh my, they have some catching up to do, but no, it wasn't a leisurely ride. So, we couldn't really enjoy the big brother of the Spreewald, and taking photos was more a matter of luck. Well, considering that you could probably kayak around here alone for a few weeks, I wasn't motivated enough to rent a boat and paddle around (or get paddled). Next time, if someone is willing to come along. So, back to the train and back home - in the end, it was over 15km on foot again. Time for some food and a small beer. Goodbye, Spreewald, as the Sorbs say. 😉