Visit to La Plata: Couchsurfing Style

A map of the city clearly displaying its mathematical design

About a month ago I had the opportunity to visit La Plata, a city of about a million inhabitants about 40 minutes south of Buenos Aires. La Plata, the name, has several different meanings. In Spanish it means "silver," in Porteño it means "money," or "Silver Dollar City" in English if such a place exists. Regardless, La Plata is the capital of the Province of Buenos Aires and has just celebrated its 132nd anniversary.

Visiting La Plata from Buenos Aires is like moving from a rushing river to a calm flowing stream. Everything is slower, quieter, more organized, and less "rushed." Granted there probably is a rush hour, and stress, but the mathematical way the city was structured, by the city planner Pedro Benoit, allows for maximum efficiency with minimal dysfunction. Indeed, instead of street names, each street is numbered mathematically on a cuadrant so you can know, if you understand the layout of the city, exactly where you are and exactly where you need to go just based on the street numbers. This is partially true in Buenos Aires--only partially.

A view from outside the Cathedral of La Plata

I travelled to La Plata couchsurfing style, for a couchsurfing event in which one of my students invited me. I have to say many of my experiences have been akin to dipping my toes in different pools without actually plunging into any single one, save perhaps life in Buenos Aires, but I suppose you can't dive into'em all. You live in one pool while occasionally dipping into others.



The couchsurfers of La Plata are a very close-knit group, very open and inviting, especially to foreigners. They also tend to view Porteños similarly to how a Vermonter feels about a New Yorker: as a necessary nuisance. Four of us carpooled to La Plata, where we met the group in a large, open plaza in the center of the city. We chatted until midnight, at which point we realized our hunger and had a typically late Argentine dinner, finishing up at 1-1:30.


As it was a couchsurfing event, we were invited to stay in the apartment of one of the couchsurfers from La Plata. We all crammed onto tiny mattresses for an authentically couchsurfing experience. Unfortunately for the other American in the group, his air mattress deflated during the night, and he awoke to the sensation of a hardwood floor and perhaps a stiff back.

Another view of the Cathedral

From inside the Cathedral

On Saturday three of us went out to get facturas and juice for breakfast, and in the afternoon we headed to the neo-Gothic cathedral, the construction of which took one hundred years--more than a generation. We had the opportunity to travel up the glass elevator to get a good view of the city. Unlike Buenos Aires, La Plata isn't a tall city, and most of the buildings were no more than three storeys, giving us an expansive view to all sides from perhaps the highest point in the city.

Animalitos!!!!!!!

Finally we finished in one of the expansive parks for the Feria Internacional Folklore, a music fair happening during that weekend. I had seen the little furry animal advertisements for the Feria in Buenos Aires and I was really hoping to get a glimpse of the little animalitos, or maybe keep one as a pet. After searching intently for some time through the expansive parks, I spotted the animals with their instruments and endeavored to approach them but I was stopped by some burly security men.

Claudia recommended I should jump the fence and rush the animalitos as though I were a hysterical fan. This I tried, but was promptly hauled down and crushed beneath the meaty stomachs of four security guards. They told me never to interfere with the fair again, and if I did they would need to deport me. I laughed madly at their vane words and, intending to clamber over the fence once more, and was immediately tazed into a compliant and malleable daze. I can't vouch for the validity of this story.  

Exhausted by the efforts expended upon acquiring one of the furry animalitos, I took a long nap in the grass and then went to listen to some music while some of the couchsurfers slacklined and others drank iced mate with juice, known as tereré. 

Four of us returned to Buenos Aires by taking the bus 29, which connects La Plata to Buenos Aires. The cost was relatively inexpensive, and had several stops on 9 de Julio, which is very convenient for anyone needing to or from La Plata. The cost itself was only $25 pesos one way.

The most interesting part of this rather uninteresting return to Buenos Aires was having to watch a drunk stumble around the bus terminal in an intoxicated stupor and muttering disconnected syllables in a language not dissimilar to Spanish. His fly was also unzipped--one cannot help noticing such things sometimes. As a side note, and it probably goes without mentioning, only use the restroom in the La Plata bus station as a last resort. Imagine rationed toilet paper, wet, sticky floors, and odors of stale pee and you're not far away from reality.

Aside from those minor inconveniences my experience in La Plata was a positive one, and it's a nice change of rhythm from the rush of Buenos Aires to something calmer--a dip into a calmer stream perhaps.

A great example of the intricacy of the stonework

Cheers and all best,

Kyle