Sunday, March 14, 2010

La Plata

I cross the street with an unnerving audacity, zigzagging between cars at the stoplights, dodging zooming mopeds, playing chicken with the city buses that stop for no one. I step over a stale piece of dog shit and hobble over the uneven sidewalk. The pescaderia is a block away but I can still smell the stench of dead fish.

My skin has turned a darker shade with each passing week as the sun almost always beams down on me as I walk towards the center of the city. One block after another, I stumble forward, looking towards the oncoming traffic, hoping I can cross the street without a vicious Peugeot or run-down Ford cutting my life short.

The houses, offices, and apartment buildings soon enough give way to a plaza: green grass, people sipping mate, a statue commemorating the republic or a founder, a food stand, graffiti accenting the scene.

I'm late. My arm flails in the air as a taxi cab passes. 5 y 54, por favor. The cab jets as the pesos register on his meter. Block after block of city zooms by. The American classic rock softly playing on the radio drowns out the honking of cars, the roaring of motorbikes, the chatter of people on their cell phones. The lack of stop signs in this city of constant four-way intersections is an indication of the ordered chaos that governs it. If he's daring enough, he barrels through, hoping he doesn't get hit. If he's cautious, he'll roll towards the edge and peer over at the intersecting street, then slam the accelerator if he thinks he can make it.

Once pesos, he tells me. I fumble for the change, hand it over, and and step out of the taxi, once again surrounded by the noisy, rag-tag orchestra that is La Plata.