Shopping La Boca Style

While I was fishing at the river mouth yesterday evening I was joined on the beach by a well dressed and quite attractive local woman carrying plastic shopping bags. She stood looking across the river mouth to the other side and soon a girl paddling in a big rubber tyre made her way across the river.

They were chatting and laughing a little and to be honest I was concentrating on trying to catch a fish so didn't really take too much notice. When I next looked around the girl in the rubber ring had the bags of shopping on her lap and the women was swimming and pushing the rubber ring, girl and the shopping across the river. I didn't see her enter the water so I've no idea if she stripped off or swam in her long cotton dress.

The river here is about 60 metres wide but the round trip by road to the other side would probably take an hour or so by bus and walking. The slightly unorthodox swim including the shopping took just over 5 minutes as they paddled, chatting all the way, with the sardine fishermen rowing by in their old wooden boats ready to cast their nets. It all seemed perfectly normal to everyone, apart from me. And they soon disappeared into the shade of the trees overhanging the far bank and were gone.

Next time Chris asks me to help unload the shopping from the back of the car and I'm in the middle of something else and feel it's a bit of a chore, I'll try and remember that all I have to do is carry the bags from the car to the kitchen and this doesn't involve inflated car tyres and a 120 metre swim.