Back posting a side trip we made the first week of arriving before flying north to Puerto Iguazu. We wanted to explore the Buenos Aires delta area from Tigre. We caught a small train that brought us to some small towns before arriving in Tigre, a jumping off point for river trips into the Parana Delta. 

The delta covers 6500 miles of canals, rivers, marshes, and hundreds of islands. Many of the islands hold self sufficient communities and others are privately owned with weekend residences,restaurants, lodging, and marine support. Rather than a tour we decided to take a river bus with a German resort/restaurant as our final destination. The river bus filled with locals carrying every kind of cargo one could imagine. Water heaters, produce, bundles of who knows what, babies in arms, students with school bags, feeble seniors with canes….everyone crowded on the water bus our knees touching the folks sitting across from us. As we set off, multiple buses appeared to race each other for position. 

The lazy, brackish water formed wakes around us. The bus went back and forth dropping people off on both sides of the river. A barking guard dog would protect his dock until his rightful owner stepped off the boat turning his barks to tail wagging. The delta was alive with beautiful trees and countless bayous. It dawned on us after ten minutes of observing the surroundings that we had no idea where to get off. The woman who sold us the ticket said to be sure and get off on the left side and we thought there must be signs to indicate our destination. No signs, no regular stops….the bus stopped where the riders lived. I asked a woman nursing her baby sitting across from us if she knew of the Alpenhaus. She shook her head. Dick asked the lady next to him with the same response. We looked at each other and shook our heads. So, Dick took the Alpenhaus brochure out on deck to the man unloading folks and got him to nod affirmatively. We really should have studied Spanish more before this! The kindness of strangers and faith in good outcome paid off as we were dropped off (on the left side) and walked along the path until we found the resort/restaurant. 

William, the owner, was on the deck in the sunshine with his laptop. He agreed to serve us lunch. We were the only ones there! He served us gnocchi with a salad and a bottle of Malbec. He chatted with us and shared some of his favorite places in northern Argentina. His dogs were friendly and took special interest when lunch was served. After lunch we walked around the resort imagining a life on the bayou. It was worth the trouble to get here. We caught the water bus back and had a leisurely trip back to Buenos Aires.