La Costanera Sur

I had the TV news on this morning, listening to some Argentinian Spanish, and they had the upbeat weather report live from the Costanera Sur. Smiling happy people, spending this perfect day out in the sun. And I though, oooh, I gotta go! So off I went, on my trusty bike.

I'm still not entirely sure what the Costanera Sur is exactly. It seems to include the Reserva Ecologica, but it's a little more than that. The Reserva (more later) is a kind of nature preserve between downtown and the Rio de la Plata. It's mostly a couple of swamps, with some very nice and dirt roads running around and between them. It's nice to go there and bike around, you can actually cover a few miles on dirt roads, and there is even one end that's mostly deserted, so you can go fast and work up a sweat.

As seems to be the case in deserted areas of public parks all over the world, this area appears to be a gay cruising spot. Today it was pretty warm and I was there early, and there was no one there. But previously I have seen dudes lurking around, being very interested in who was coming by. But I just blow through (no pun intended) on my bike and they leave me alone.

To get there, I went along the Rio de la Plata as much as I could. This meant going by the port. Containerized shipping! My favorite thing, as I wrote last year!

Here's the port -- it looks like they have some new cranes!


And here is the Aduana, or Customs building. With some unusually subtly-colored containers in front. (Usually the containers are in bold, primary colors, which adds to their toy-truck appeal.)


Okay, not everyone loves containerized shipping, I know. But here's a fun kind of shipping, one you don't see every day -- It's a boat being shipped on a boat!


Ok, ok, I haven't even gotten to the Costanera Sur yet, I know. Actually the above was taken from the Reserva Ecologica, which as I said above appears to be a part of the Costanera Sur.

My spanish-english dictionary defines Costanera as a path or promenade along a river or lake, and says it's a word peculiar to the Southern Cone (Argentina and Uruguay). So I would say the most important part of the Costanera Sur, the real Costanera, is this nice wide sidewalk along the interior swamp/lagoon:It's like there are two parts to the Costanera Sur -- the Reserva, which is the "nature" part, and the Costanera, which is more like a typical park, which runs between the Reserva and Puerto Madero (which itself runs between the Costanera Sur and the MicroCentro, or downtown).

Anyway, when the newscaster broadcast live from the Costanera, she was probably somewhere along this strip or in the adjoining park areas. It's a great, very lively place to go on a nice day, probably the best people-watching in buenos aires on such a day. And I like it because it doesn't seem to be just rich people, but at the same time it feels pretty safe. There are just so many people around, and there are definitely cops around, so brazen crime seems pretty unlikely.

Of course, the Reserva Ecologica is on the Rio de la Plata -- it's the coastline of Buenos Aires. The Rio de la Plata is said to be the widest river in the world. I didn't believe it, I figured it was a delta, just the opening of the river onto the sea. But my spanish teacher Pato insists that by Buenos Aires it really is all fresh water. The water is totally brown, as are both the rivers, the Parana and the Uruguay, which join together to form the Rio de la Plata. So, maybe it is fresh water -- if it was ocean water, the dirt (which comes from the Amazon jungle!) would be diluted, as it is off Montevideo.

So, that's an incredibly long and rambling introduction to this picture of the "beach" in the Reserva Ecologica, the best beach Buenos Aires has to offer:


The small version doesn't do it justice -- you need to click on it for the big version to see just how trash-filled this particular waterfront is.

And I have one more picture. it's not a great picture, but it's a classic from the Reserva Ecologica -- the buenos aires syline:

It's not exactly a skyline worth writing home about or anything. But it's nice from this angle. It's actually very rare in BA that you feel like you're in nature. and the Reserva, if nothing else, does make you feel like you're away from the city. Just not very far away!