puerto madero

la boca, buenos aires

i love cities. love them. that's why i've lived in new york for three years, chicago for one, and aspire to visit every two horse town from ouro preto to ouagadougou. but, after time, the need for fresh air and lack of civilization becomes a necessity after a subte ride or diesel exhaust inhalation too many. therefore, i was delighted to finally realize a trip to nearby puerto madero today and lament the fact that i did not do so sooner.

puerto madero is the tylenol-capsule shaped island due east of the microcentro and the heart of buenos aires business and political ado. it was designed almost entirely out of excavated tierra and previous generations waste to provide a new and improved port over a century ago. it's size was quickly determined to be too small for such shipping needs and thus relegated to being the geographic elephant in the conurbana. what has happened since is that half of the island (closest to the microcentro) contains high-rise condos and kitschy multinational retailers (come here for tgi fridays), while the other half contains the reserva ecologica costanera sur. guess which one i went to? (hint: the one without jalapeño poppers)

entonces, we walked for a couple kilometers to where the reserva meets the rio de la plata. it is amazing that a city built entirely adjacent to a river almost entirely neglects its geographic jewel, but the sight of the casi-blue water was a reminder of this. there was something so refreshing about staring into the great vastness of the river, how it extends to the ocean, and all that lies beyond.........hasta que a class full of boys arrived at the river and did what they do best: they threw rocks. about twenty of them, none older than twelve, stood at the rocky orilla and threw pebbles, stones, rocks, and boulders into the great river. few of them rested for the ten minutes we were near them, tirelessly dedicating themselves to this pointless task. i've been searching since for the metaphor to this behavior and have simply settled on this adage: sometimes it's fun to throw rocks.

marinate on that for a minute.