A thirty-minute train ride north of Buenos Aires leads to the Municipality of Tigre (TEE-gray). Tigre is a town built on the delta of the Río Paraná, the second-longest river in South America.

A skein of waterways cross the delta as the river works its way to the junction with Río Plata, forever named on our maps as the Plate River, on account of early British presence and influence in the area. The Brits stole not only the name, but the Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands) as well. Argentineans remain resentful to this day.

I hate touristy things. Especially sightseeing buses and river cruises. I once took a Seine River sightseeing boat through the center of Paris. Our Frenchwoman guide pointed out the American Embassy, sniffing that the Américaines had installed air conditioning, of course. Her armpits announced far more emphatically that she herself eschewed air conditioning, a reassuring consistency in her pronouncements.

I see I'm having real difficulty staying on the subject.

—§—

So we reach the banks of a delta waterway and our traveling companion Judy says, "Oh, let's take a catamaran ride!"

Bless her.

On my own, I would have contemptuously dismissed the boat rides, and so would have missed a highlight of our visit.

Scores of these twin-hulled wooden boats carry tourists all over the delta. The waterways are languid, colored greenish brown as any good tropical river should be, and immediately put me in mind of the setting for Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.

This building could be Toad Hall. It's not—it's the yacht club. But it could be a sort of a jungle Toad hall.

Tigre has an art museum that we didn't visit: an architectual fantasy on the river's edge.

The true charm of the delta emerges when the monumental buildings are left behind. Entering the minor waterways, a whole community is revealed.

Some houses are mansions or near-mansions. Others are more modest. All slumber peacefully beside the water, side-by-side, class distinctions forgotten. Mansion, shack, tract house, ruin. Nobody seems to care.

No roads connect these places. All communication is by boat. The place below looks like it's right out of the "Y" summer camp I stayed in when I was ten.

Besides transportation, the river has other uses. Yard trimmings piling up? Hell, just dump it in the river.

I wonder: Is that legal?

I took scores of images of riverside houses. I particularly liked this one.

I could see myself sitting on my dock, reading the papers, sipping a coffee. Getting in my inboard river boat and running down to Tigre for lunch and buying groceries. Taking an evening swim. Passing a little time with Mole.