Touring the Tigre Delta

By MICHAEL T. LUONGO

THE belle-époque building that houses the Museo de Arte Tigre in the Tigre Delta of Argentina opened as a social club a century ago.The building eventually fell into disuse before reopening as a museum in 2006, newly refurbished with marble, bronze and stained glass as part of a municipal improvement project.

“There are three places in Buenos Aires which are changing, which everyone is talking about,” said Diana Saiegh, the director of the Museo de Arte Tigre. “San Telmo, Palermo Viejo, and now, Tigre.”

The renaissance comes after a long decline.. Recently however, the municipality of Tigre has improved the waterfront walkways along the Río Luján and renovated the shopping and information arcades near the main train station. Developers have also become attracted to Tigre, building homes and spas on its remote islands, aiming once again at the very wealthy.

The region is vast. At 5,405 square miles, the Tigre Delta is among the world’s largest, and it is one of the only major deltas in the world that does not empty into a sea or ocean. It flows instead into the Río de la Plata, which separates Argentina and Uruguay, after the Río Paraná splits into several smaller rivers and forms a multitude of sedimentary islands covered in forest and grasslands. With its islands and canals, Tigre is what Venice might have looked like before development.

Tigre is named for the jaguars — which were called tigers — that once roamed here, before the islands became important agriculturally for wicker and fruit in the mid-1800s.

Later on the British built trains bringing these products to market. British character pervades Tigre, with Victorians and half-timbered mock Tudors. Many of those structures and the museum are on what locals call “continente,” the mainland. This center sits on the Río Luján tributary and is a launching pad from which boats travel from the Estación Fluvial terminal to the islands in the delta. In addition to the museum, there is an amusement park and a market where handmade reed furniture, leather, artisanal food and other products are sold.


Tigre still attracts artists, like Sebastián Páez Vilaró, son of the Uruguayan artist Carlos Páez Vilaró. His atelier, where he makes bronze and copper repoussé art, is a miniature of his father’s amorphous Casa Pueblo in Punta Del Este. Mr. Páez Vilaró, 25, said he finds Tigre inspiring “because I can enjoy nature and the land and still be close to Buenos Aires.”

A number of spa resorts and gated communities — called “countries” after American country clubs — have opened on the islands. For example, there is Bonanza, an island where the Bonanza Deltaventura company offers horseback riding, kayaking, bird-watching and tramping through forests, where botanists point out plant species. Some new developments attempt to bridge the two worlds.

The Isla el Descanso, is a small island occupied by a retreat that highlights its natural attributes: lagoons, channels and gardens. The owner, Claudio Stamato, created it when he converted his weekend home into a retreat with sculptures by Alberto Bastón Díaz, an Argentine artist. Its most famous visitor was Madonna, who came in 2008 with her children and bodyguards.

Other developments are more ambitious. Delta Eco Spa, on an island near Bonanza, is a sprawling resort that opened in November 2009, six years after construction began. Building is continuing, according to the hotel’s commercial director, Marcelo Israel, with much of the material coming laboriously by boat. “Constructing in the water is not the same as constructing on solid ground,” he said.

Though its physical structure is not finished, the spa’s vision seems complete. It is meant for romance: Children under 10 are not permitted, and rooms feature showers for two; each room comes with a patio deck. Private vacation bungalows are being developed on the island to offer guests even more privacy.

The precursor to Delta Eco and the wave of other spa resorts that have been built is Rumbo 90, which opened in 2005. It’s intimate, with only seven guest rooms and a rustic-romantic candlelit dining area whose menu emphasizes river fish and other local products. It’s possible to visit for half days or just for lunch, but Paula Gezzi, an owner, said that day-trippers are limited to maintain the sense of solitude. The resort fronts Canal del Este, which Ms. Gezzi described as “upscale.” Across the water, a neighboring island has large, expensive homes.

Ms. Gezzi, 32, vacationed as a child in Tigre. “Twenty years ago,” she said, “the only thing to do was have some fun in the day and then return to the city, but now people choose to stay on the islands.” She added, “you are only half an hour from land, but you feel very far away.”

Her sentiments were echoed by Norma Effrón of Buenos Aires, who was celebrating her 54th birthday at Rumbo 90 and was staying there overnight for the first time. “I love the vegetation,” she said. “I love the water. There was a time when I used to come very often, but it was only to stay for the day.” This time, she said, she found that “Tigre is a way to refresh the head.”

Susana Neira, 53, a Buenos Aires-based tour guide, finds the mainland just as restorative. Ms. Neira is a member of the Buenos Aires Rowing Club, located between Tigre’s train station and the Estación Fluvial. She calls the club’s baronial British structure a “Harry Potter place". Among Ms. Neira’s favorite pastimes is rowing along the Tigre waterfront.

As she paddled there on a recent trip, people waved from the Puerto de Frutos, the tourist market. At water level, the intimacy is astounding: kayakers stop one another for directions, and one can hear the conversations coming from the docks of island houses.

The crew boat returned to Tigre as the sun set, casting a golden glow over the water, silhouetting the Parque de la Costa amusement park.

Ms. Neira stopped rowing, taking in the view. “I spend all my free time here in Tigre,” she said.

adapted from The New York Times Photos by Beatrice Murch for The New York Times