The Platas

Yesterday I was in La Plata. Being lucky enough to have a housemate with periodic access to a vehicle we hit for the south, stopped in Quilmes, a small working class city on the coast of Rio Plata, and continued onward for La Plata. Quilmes has a dirty but pleasant coastline with restaurants and bars and a wharf in partial construction. One gets the sense there are very few yankies or gringos that take in the sun around these parts and so an adventure into strange, but possibly unsafe cultural transcendence would commence.

Down and Down, on to La Plata, the provincial capital of Buenos Aires. The city was larger than I had thought, which is only in comparison to friends having told me that it was smaller than they thought and quite walkable. There are around 550,000 inhabitants and the center has an impressive array of cultural edifices. A number of museums, an ecological reserve, and the neo-gothic Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepcion de La Plata. Five kilometers west of the city is a large park of trails, hiking, and grassy clearings amidst slightly forested areas. For the ease and closeness of the city it is a grand escape of the metropolis that is Buenos Aires, to explore another somewhat urban local, with a much more placid demeanor. It would be unkind as well not to mention the great friendliness of everyone we encountered along the way, from bici riders to futbol fanatics, we navigated the city by random acts of kindness.

When I first arrived in Buenos Aires, excuse my ignorance, I was confused by "the Platas." You mean to say that there is the city La Plata, but also, further south, Mar del Plata? Yes there is; it probably routed from a more mediocre grasp of Spanish, one that has been cleared up by now. Ha. Anyways, tomorrow is the final day of the Mar del Plata International Film Festival. The largest and most renowned film fest of South America, something for which I am banging my head for not having gone. So I you happen to be heading there, or are already there, by all means check it out, its cheap, and the cinema will be glorious.