Day 9 Ecological Preserve

Day 9 (4/16/08) Ecological Preserve.


Today I went back to the ecological preserve after Monday's aborted attempt. This is a map of it. The north side is a beach of the Rio de Plata, which is more like a huge bay than a river. Over 4 miles of Trails crisscross the preserve.


They have a vet here for rehabilitating injured wildlife and re-releasing them into the wild.


Monarch butterflies are everywhere, feeding on these succulent little flowers.


Sorry I am no botanist, so I can't tell you the names of any of these species.

This tree was covered with these tiny spikes and had these beautiful pink flowers.

These ones.


Another one of the many beautiful flowers that dot the preserve.


The entire preserve actually used to be an old landfill, until the native plants took over. You can still see this fill material on the "beach".

Twisted remains of pretty much everything.

Some of the material has been out to sea and redeposited, with new additions.

This beach was filled with little pieces of treasure, probably the most interesting beach I have ever had the pleasure of combing. After my pockets started bulging from the weight I decided to just take a picture of my finds instead and leave them there(much lighter).

I also found some sort of 3 inch tusk from god knows what. That I kept, but no picture. If I lived here I think I would spend my days as some hermit sculptor, living on the beach and constructing huge figures from the rubble.
In keeping with my endless fascination with decay:

This is a decommissioned power station inside the preserve, the tractor looks to be still used however.

At the base of the old park, people have constructed crude homes for themselves.

Argentina has statues everywhere, but this horse takes the cake for twistedness.

After exiting the park, I ate at this Parrilla. These little stands have a wood burning BBQ and make some of the best sandwiches I have ever had. Note the picture of Scooby Doo on the side.



You can also see the smoke from that goddamn fire starting to roll in, that is not pollution.

That night it got really bad, the news called it "noche del humo" the night of smoke. The death toll from accidents due to low visibility is up to 8 people.