Not so according to plan: El Tigre and Punta Carrasca

They say it isn't a good story if everything goes according to plan. Well, welcome to my Saturday in Delta del Tigre and my night in Punta Carrasca.

Woke up at what felt like the crack of dawn at 8:45 am, really wanted to shower but would've been late meeting my four friends at the train station if I did. We were going to explore barrios off a delta anyway, so I figured I'd shower after. After our hour long train ride - which cost a wopping 2.70 pesos (aka 60 cents) - we landed on El Tigre. It's an "outer borough" of Buenos Aires, so to speak. But the "city" is all waterways and islas. The rivers are the streets. The boats are the cars. In fact, boat gas stations are quite prominent around here. And I don't mean the kind where you pull your boat onto land and fill it up at the pump. I mean the pump comes to your boat, which docks in the water. This is the place to go kayaking, canoeing, wakeboarding etc.

We bought boat tickets to Tres Bocas which is generall the most visited of the islas. Our plan was to walk around the island (it is literally a circle), eat some lunch, go to the AMASING park (as my Brazilian friend said by mistake - he meant amusement), and take a train ride home so I could shower and head off to an event at Bet Hillel. Yay Jews.

Well. We got off the boat, an equivalent of a water bus. We walked straight up the dock and climbed over a bridge and headed off to explore the circle around Tres Bocas. We took tons of great pictures, saw a lot of the residences of Tres Bocas, relaxed on a random swing.

The path kind of tapers off and we end up tip-toeing on rocks squished into the mud. We should have known when we were in the mud. We came upon a house with a rope hanging like a swing from a tree. My friend started messing around and soon the little old man who lived in the house came outside. "Estan perdidos." It means "you are lost." "Um, nope....estamos yendo por la vuelta." [Um, nope...we are going around the cirlce.] "Estan perdidos."[You are lost.] "Pero seguimos este mapa..." [But we are following this map.] "No, equivocaron cuando cruzaron el puente." [You screwed up when you crossed the bridge.]

OH! You mean the very first thing we did. You mean the bridge we crossed half an hour back up the road? We weren't supposed to cross it? Oh good. Hahahahahha. Many, I can only imagine if we had kept going. What if my friend hadn't just climbed on this man's property. He would not have come out of the house and we would have wandered the poverty-stricken landscape of Tres Bocas and there would have never been a circle to turn around on.

Well, we headed back the way we came, past the houses and their grills, past the relaxing swing, past the flee-bitten dogs, past the little restaurant, past the gas station, and back over the bridge. We decided to walk along the river. Thank goodness it was a beautiful sunny day. And when the river became monotonous we ventured back inland to explore the real vuelta. Turns out, our version was more interesting.

So we went back to the river. Plopping down we immediately ordered a liter of Quilmes, Argentine beer. Shockingly, I enjoy this beer. Did you hear that, Matt? I enjoyed beer! I had my first "asado," grilled meal. Argentina is famous for their grilling. I was excited to have protein (YAY fish!), but they don't use any seasoning. So it was good fish, but without much flavor. Natural and delicious nonetheless.

We dined for a long time and then decided we'd better get back if wanted to follow our plan and ride the roller coaster in the AMASING park. So we asked for the check. And we waited. And we waited. We asked again. We fed the dogs our leftover food. We waited. We missed the boat. We were pretty irritated. 294 pesos (for 5 people - how silly) and 45ish extra minutes later, we boarded the boat.

It was so late that we were supposed to be heading back to BsAs so I could shower. Remember that? But I decided that we had come all this way, we had to go to the AMASING park. We got to the AMASING park 20 minutes before it closed. So we gave up on that. We walked through the market - people here are obsessed with wicker. Wicker baskets, wicker chairs, wicker trunks, plain wicker to go home and make wicker things. It was kind of funny watching all these little people carrying furniture on their shoulders and heads back to their cars as if their houses were empty and until today they had had nothing to sit on.

We had nothing to sit on for the train ride back. We had all been planning to take naps on that hour long ride. But remember, almost nothing in this day went according to plan though we had a ton of fun anyway.

I dashed off the train and headed into the subte to get to the Cafe Concert at Bet Hillel which was starting somewhere between 8 and 8:30. Bet Hillel, and the conservative shuls here in general, are big on music. Their services are accompanied by a keyboard, a flute, sometimes a saxophone (Amijai had a cello). It's very orchestral and beautiful - not so folk-lory as when services are musical in the U.S. But this evening of music was kind of like a talent show of all the young adults in the community.

I met Alan's family and sat with Sima (who is renting me the apartment). I'm in love with her. She is just the cutest and sweetest. Such a hip grandma. The show was fun and I made a friend my age in the congregation. He's studying to be an engineer and wants to go to Cambridge. We were yelled at for talking during the show. But I was so excited to make an Argentine friend! As it turns out though, there are a lot of kids who like to sing in this community. Approximately four hours worth. What's funnier is that they love to sing American music. Some Alanis Morrisette, the Beatles (ok not exactly American), Jason Mraz, U2. I felt like I was at home as I sang along and really enjoyed myself.

Finally, at 1245 I made it home. SHOWER TIME! We were all planning to go out and party big. So I showered and called the gang to find out the dress code. No one knew. Do you wanna know what's silly? That people here don't go anywhere until 2am. You know what's sillier? Sitting in a towel at 1:30 am waiting for your friends to call back and tell you what you should wear.

But by 230 I was dressed and ready to go. A quick cab ride to Terrazas del Este and I was in club heaven. Luckily I found my friends and we headed straight for the room with Latin American music. Attractive men! So here they are. I mean, not all of them, but certainly the most attractive bunch I'd seen so far. The music was great. So much energy and passion. The only problem was EVERYONE wanted to hear this music. Buenos Aires is full of clubs with house and techno music, but surprisingly few of Latin music and reggaetone.

Much like at the hip hop club on Thursday, my movement was not as voluntary as I would have liked. And as it turns out, I wore exactly the wrong thing. Sure I looked great, but my nice jumper in a crowded club was not conducive to people spilling alcohol all night. And my long necklace, not conducive to people pushing past you and taking you with them. But never ye fear! I went to dance and so I danced! We danced in a big group circle. We salsa-ed with random Argentines. It was our best night out yet. The lights weren't even blinking too fast; I could see and dance!

By 6 am we were beat. It take a lot of energy to balance in your heels in a crowded club first starting at 3 am. We planned to take a taxi home. Ah plans. The taxis out front wanted 50 pesos. I didnt care. Thats how you get home. But my friend didn't want to pay that much so we walked away from the club, about 15 minutes down the road. So did 300 other people. By some miraculous stroke of luck we finally got a cab at 7am. Good morning and good night.

While Saturday proved that you definitely don't need things to go according to plan to have a BLAST, Sunday proved that no plan is just as good. After finally rolling out of bed halfway through the day, we gathered at the hostel to watch Spain vs. Holland.

VIVA ESPANA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The best part of the game was being in a Spanish-speaking country where the announcer yells GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!! It was a lazy but necessary day of recuperation.

And today I did more planning. Working on the arrangements for my excursions North, South and West and my sleeping arrangements since I leave my beautiful apartment Thursday. And taking a brief break at the Japonese Botanical Gardens.

When people invented blogs, I don't think they planned for people to write such long-winded posts. So much for plans.

BESOS!