Christmas in Tigre

This wooden boat is similar to the one that took us to our cabin. They run several times throughout the day, going up and down the river dropping people off and picking people up.

This was the dock of the place we stayed, "Villa Monica".

There was a main house (no pic), where the owners live, 2 cabins and a hydroponic garden. Here is a picture of our cabin and the garden.

Christmas Eve night, Charlotte and her friend, Kimberly, made us a feast of pasta and salad. The two of them had perused the garden and found fresh lettuce, onions, peppers and tomatoes. Charlotte also whipped up a fantastic caprese salad, too. Unfortunately, the basil was too young to cut, but we let that slide.

Kimberly left in the morning and the gal Charlotte is dating came in her place. Julianna is an Italian Argentine (there is huge Italian influence in Argentina) and she made us some wonderful meals. Who would have thought we'd eat like kings while "camping"!

Julianna and Charlotte

On Christmas day Julianna made us traditional asado and vegetables. While she was bbqing, Wes, the owners' dog came to join us. Of course I had to try to befriend him, but he was more like a cat than a dog...he called the shots and while he wanted to be around us, he mostly kept is distance.

Me, Wes, Charlotte and her Christmas stocking

Charlotte didn't want Tre and I to go without a gift on Christmas (very nice - thanks Charlotte!), so she bought got each of us a little something. I got a little swiss army kit for my purse and Tre got some salsa golf (we'd say it was basically fry sauce...and really good).

This is a picture of yet another super fresh salad and homemade gnocchi...compliments of Julianna. Delicioso! Julianna's 1st language is Spanish and only speaks a little bit of English, so Charlotte was our interpreter, but by the end of the stay, we could all communicate pretty good, even without our interpreter.

An attempt at using the timer on the camera and while the 2nd short turned out a better, the camera must have ate it - ha!

Aside from all the great food (thanks again to Charlotte and Julianna), we relaxed and relaxed and relaxed. 4 days of reading, crosswords, cards, sudoku, sunbathing, swimming (in the very brown river...which I am told is just due to dirt), napping and snacking on Dulce de Leche and cookies. Dulce de Leche is basically carmel, but the Argentine's swear they invented it. You can put it on just about anything for a dessert, but my favorite was on bananas. (sorry Kristi...)

Rumor had it that a "grocery" boat and an ice cream boat would make it's way down our leg of the river and sure enough they did. No picture of the ice cream boat, but here's one of the "grocery" boat. We were in desperate need of coca light (diet coke) and were very happy to see it!

Charlotte and Julianna left a few hours before us as Julianna had to work on Monday morning, so here is a picture of Tre and I waiting for our return boat. What a wonderful long weekend of "camping"!