Crónicas personales y recorridos urbanos por Buenos Aires. Un espacio dedicado a la observación de la ciudad, la literatura y el pensamiento escéptico. Un archivo de reflexiones diversas e historias cotidianas que emergen entre el caos y la rutina. Aquí conviven varietés de ideas, análisis atentos y colecciones de detalles imperceptibles: objetos, deriva geográfica, lecturas, vistas inconexas y preguntas abiertas que invitan a mirar la realidad con curiosidad y cierto distanciamiento crítico.
There are many ways to walk the city. Ours is urban hiking (Urban Trek), a low-intensity steady-state walk (LISS) that transforms movement into an active yet deeply contemplative journey. A porteño city-trekking experience where the rhythm of your legs adapts to your gaze.
The poem "Las calles" ("The Streets") by Jorge Luis Borges provides the perfect conceptual framework to understand this way of walking that connects every scene:
"The streets of Buenos Aires are already my innermost self. / Not the greedy streets, uncomfortable with crowds and hustle, / but the lingering streets of the neighborhood, / almost invisible out of habit, / touched by gloom and sunset / and those further out devoid of merciful trees..."
— Jorge Luis Borges, Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923)
The Route
We begin the journey on foot at the intersection of Av. Las Heras and República Árabe Siria street. From there, we link a green, monumental path connecting Av. Las Heras, República de la India street, Av. del Libertador, and Av. Sarmiento.
The final stretch skirts two icons of the porteño landscape:
• A complete loop around the Galileo Galilei Planetarium. • A circuit around Dr. Benjamín Apthorp Gould Square.
Snapshots of the Trail: The City Between Urgency and Rest
Walking through Buenos Aires means constantly crossing paths with two opposing forces. On one side, "the wail of the siren cutting through the neighborhood like a gust" (Ernesto Sabato) and the ambulance that shatters "the neighborhood's calm" (Roberto Arlt). On the other, the quiet pause where "time binds them, delays them" over a chessboard on the sidewalk (Jorge Luis Borges).
Amidst this pulse, the sight of "a small red car, polished and humble" (Osvaldo Soriano) preserves everyday life, while the afternoon comes to a standstill in the foliage and "light filters through the iron railings and the leaves" (Adolfo Bioy Casares).
Literary Mosaic: The Walk's Photos through Its Authors
Every element encountered along the step finds its exact reflection in Argentine literature:
1. Chess at a sidewalk table
"Tenacious in their eager labyrinth / time binds them, delays them, / in their silence the game holds them prisoner..." — Jorge Luis Borges, excerpt from the poem Ajedrez (Chess, from El hacedor, 1960).
2. Vegetation and iron railings backlit
"The afternoon has come to a standstill in the foliage of the trees. Light filters through the iron railings and the leaves, drawing a lace of shadows over the cold pavement of the street." — Adolfo Bioy Casares, Dormir al sol (Asleep in the Sun, 1973).
3. The urgency of the fire truck
"The wail of the siren cut through the neighborhood like a gust. The red, heavy fire truck passed by, vibrating the windowpanes and the afternoon air." — Ernesto Sabato, Sobre héroes y tumbas (On Heroes and Tombs, 1961).
4. The ambulance in the city
"An ambulance crosses the avenue at full speed, shattering the neighborhood's calm with its white and green howl." — Roberto Arlt, adapted excerpt from Aguafuertes porteñas.
5. The small, popular car (a little red Fiat / "fitito")
"A small red car, polished and humble, parked next to the sidewalk curb, seemed to be the center of gravity for the whole block." — Osvaldo Soriano, Cuentos de los años felices (1993).
6. The Planetarium
Focal point and grand finale of our journey, standing as an astronomical and geometric landmark in the middle of the park.
How many times do we walk through the city guided solely by the inertia of routine or the numbers on a screen? Today we put on our sneakers to go on an urban hiking journey and low-intensity steady-state (LISS) urban march. It is an active yet contemplative route, ideal for connecting with the urban landscape and, along the way, reflecting on how we interpret the world around us.
📍 The Route: From the city to the cosmos The starting point was the intersection of Av. Scalabrini Ortiz and Av. Santa Fe, in the heart of Palermo. From there, the itinerary led us to connect different emblematic corners of the neighborhood:
• Av. Santa Fe → República Árabe Siria • Av. Las Heras → República de la India • Av. del Libertador → Av. Sarmiento
The final stretch led us to the iconic Galileo Galilei Planetarium, looping around Dr. Benjamín Apthorp Gould Square and enjoying the greenery surrounding its lakes.
📊 The trap of data and steps At the end of the walk, the activity app recorded a total of 9,669 steps, accompanied by eye-catching charts with patterns of speed, distance, and calories burned.
It is easy to get carried away by the precision of technology and assume that if we walk almost 10,000 steps today and the chart looks impeccable, the exact same thing will happen tomorrow. However, skeptical thinking reminds us of something crucial: accumulating past data (no matter how accurate the chart is) never fully guarantees what will happen in the future.
🦆 The illusion of the park duck and the metaphor of the inductive turkey While walking around the Planetarium lake, I watched the ducks walking calmly among the visitors. The park's white duck walks confidently, expecting every passerby or tourist to mean a crumb of bread. It trusts blindly in the regularity of the urban environment.
This scene connects directly with the screenshots from our activity app: we measure our routine day by day, expecting repetition to constitute a universal rule. This refers back to a famous philosophical metaphor: The Allegory of the Inductive Turkey (or inductive duck/swan), set forth by the skeptical philosopher Bertrand Russell in his work The Problems of Philosophy (1912).
"Experience has shown us that the frequent repetition of a uniform sequence is the cause of our expecting the same repetition on the next occasion. [...] Business men who have had a great deal of experience are so fully persuaded that the future will resemble the past that they sometimes completely fail.
The man who has fed the turkey every day throughout its life will at last request his friend to strike a neat blow-or rather, the man who feeds the turkey does so every day until at last one day out of seven-no, on the eve of Christmas-it is not fed, but instead its throat is cut, thus showing that an expectation based upon repeated induction does not always guarantee absolute truth."
— Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912).
📖 The story of the Inductive Turkey: Step by step
1. The observation: A turkey arrives at a farm and notices that on its first day it is fed at exactly 9:00 AM.
2. The accumulation of data: Like a good inductivist, it does not jump to hasty conclusions. It observes for months under all kinds of circumstances: rainy days, sunny days, cold or hot weeks. It is always fed at 9:00 AM.
3. The universal law: After accumulating hundreds of consistent pieces of evidence, the turkey formulates an indisputable scientific law: "I am always fed at 9:00 AM."
4. The refutation: The turkey wakes up on Christmas Eve feeling completely sure of its theory. It expects its food at 9:00 AM. However, it is not fed that day: the farmer cuts its throat for dinner.
💡 What does this walk teach us?
• The limitations of induction: History shows that no amount of observations in favor can prove a theory absolutely, but a single observation to the contrary is enough to destroy it.
• The false sense of security: The longer a pattern works (whether on the farm, in the daily steps of an app, or in everyday life), the more confident we feel, right when a drastic change may be closest.
• From Russell to "Black Swans": Years later, Nassim Taleb adapted this metaphor for the financial and statistical realm with his Black Swan theory: highly improbable events that are impossible to predict using historical data, yet have a devastating impact when they occur.
At the end of the day, the Galileo Galilei Planetarium functions as a temple of the cosmos: it frames us in the constant search for knowledge, but it also reminds us of the limits of what we can truly predict.
Walking is not just tallying steps on an app; it is an opportunity to pause, observe the surroundings, and remember that the future is not always a simple copy of the past.
Walking through some streets of the iconic neighborhood of Palermo, in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, this urban journey invites us to explore the city while reflecting on our scale and interconnection with the universe.
📍 The Route
• Starting point: Intersection of Av. Juan B. Justo / Av. Intendente Bullrich with Av. Santa Fe. • Route: Connecting with Av. del Libertador and Av. Sarmiento. • Points of interest:
o A lap around the Galileo Galilei Planetarium. o A lap around Plaza Dr. Benjamín Apthorp Gould.
• Return and completion: At the intersection of Av. Intendente Bullrich with Av. Santa Fe.
👟 Brief Walk Analysis
An urban and recreational itinerary designed through the surroundings of the Planetarium and Tres de Febrero Park.
The overall pace remained fairly constant, typical of an active stroll. The sequence showed a dynamic start, a slight deceleration towards the middle of the route, and a clear recovery during the final stretch, demonstrating good energy management and the ability to maintain the pace even when some fatigue set in.
The central aspect of the day was its consistency: the effort level remained uniform throughout practically the entire journey, without prolonged pauses or abrupt changes. This continuity transforms the outing into a very consistent aerobic workout, perfect for adding movement time, promoting active recovery, or strengthening the general physical base.
In conclusion: a balanced walk, firmly sustained from start to finish, marked by fluidity in effort and a final acceleration at the end.
🎨 Digital Art and the Structure of the Universe
The images of the Planetarium and its surroundings, processed through the Rodilius filter—with its characteristic intersecting lines of light, fractal beams, and glowing filaments—transform a conventional photograph into a diagram or schematic of bright networks. This aesthetic aligns precisely with the large-scale structure of the universe:
"If we were to examine the universe on ever larger scales, we would see that matter is not evenly distributed. Galaxies group together in clusters, and clusters into superclusters, forming a vast network of light filaments in the dark... The view of nature revealed by modern science is far grander, more subtle, elegant, and interconnected than the creators of ancient mythologies ever imagined."
— Carl Sagan — Cosmos (Chapter 13: "Who Speaks for Earth?")
In modern astrophysics, the distribution of matter in the universe is neither homogeneous nor chaotic, but organized into the so-called cosmic web: superclusters of galaxies interconnected by gigantic filaments of gas and dark matter, surrounded by enormous voids.
🌌 Reflections on Science and Wonder
"The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, or falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual."
— Carl Sagan — Pale Blue Dot (1994)
Modality: Urban walk | Urban journey | City-trekking | Low-Intensity Steady State Training (LISS).
There is a dimension of the city that only reveals itself when the pace becomes steady, methodical, and free from the rush of daily commuting. This walk through Palermo functioned as an exercise in city-trekking and low-intensity aerobic training, but also as an attentive exploration of the urban environment.
In this session, the goal shifted away from searching for personal records or speed; the priority was aerobic efficiency, active recovery, and metabolic control—maintaining a uniform rhythm capable of transforming the walk into a continuous observation of architecture, vegetation, and local porteño life.
The Route Layout
The circuit was defined by a circular route connecting some of the most iconic hubs and avenues in the northern area of the City of Buenos Aires:
1. Starting Point: The walk began at the intersection of Santa Fe, Juan B. Justo, and Intendente Bullrich avenues, a high-traffic point and convergence hub for public transit.
2. Connection and Insertion: From there, the route headed out in search of a steady rhythm along Av. Dorrego, eventually opening up into the visual breadth of Av. Presidente Figueroa Alcorta.
3. The Core of the Circuit: Once in the green area, the walk completed a loop surrounding the iconic figure of the Galileo Galilei Planetarium, followed by a loop around the adjacent Plaza Dr. Benjamín Apthorp Gould.
4. Return: The conclusion closed the geometry of the circuit, returning via the avenues to finish at the same original intersection at Av. Intendente Bullrich and Av. Santa Fe.
Visual Logs and Observations along the Way
Throughout the route, the eye registered sequences of contrast between urban infrastructure, integrated fauna, and historical monuments:
• The Railway Viaduct: In the initial section, the perspective of the viaduct at a pedestrian and vehicular crossing under a completely clear and cloudless sky, establishing the scale of the city's infrastructure.
• Street Scenes: The static presence of two motorcycles parked along the curb, featuring a striking yellow motorcycle in the foreground resting on the sidewalk and a white one in the background.
• Integrated Biology: A detail of natural architecture on the metallic structure of the street lighting: a carefully constructed hornero nest perched on the streetlight pipes, oblivious to the movement below.
• Marble and Traffic: The imposing presence of the Monument to the Magna Carta and Four Argentine Regions (popularly known as the Monumento de los Españoles), sculpted in white marble and surrounded by the relentless flow of vehicles.
• Sculpture and History: In the same park area, the equestrian statue of General Urquiza, resting on its granite base with sculpted reliefs detailing historical scenes.
• The Perspective of the Planetarium: The approach to the Galileo Galilei Planetarium, whose dome emerges among the dense vegetation and well-manicured flowerbeds of the Palermo woods.
• Reflections on the Water: The panoramic view of the Planetarium mirrored on the surface of the surrounding lake, while the glint of the sun generated direct glares across the sheet of water.
• Geometry and Detail: A detailed composition: in the upper left section, the close structure of the geodesic dome with its circular windows where visitors were moving around. In a diagonal cut, adjacent sections captured nuances of Venetian curtain reflections and the interiors of the exhibition halls.
Technical Analysis of the Session: LISS Cardio (Low-Intensity Steady-State) The value of the route lay not only in the geographical journey, but in the conscious application of LISS training principles.
1. Heart Rate Stability (Zone 2)
The core purpose of a LISS session is to sustain effort within the low aerobic range—typically between 60% and 70% of maximum heart rate (Zone 2). In this metabolic zone, the body predominantly and efficiently utilizes fatty acids as its primary energy substrate, keeping lactate accumulation to a minimum and reducing stress on the central nervous system.
2. Pace Uniformity (Steady-State)
The tracking of the walk reflected remarkable consistency in split times per kilometer, with extremely narrow variations between segments. Maintaining a regular pace is the key to steady-state: it prevents useless accelerations or heart rate spikes, ensuring that cardiovascular demand remains stable from start to finish.
3. Duration of the Stimulus (59 Minutes)
With a total time of 59 minutes, the session fell precisely within the optimal recommended window for low-intensity cardio training (established between 45 and 75 minutes). This duration is ideal for triggering cellular metabolic adaptations and promoting blood circulation without generating residual muscle fatigue that could interfere with other training days.
4. Altimetric Profile and Load Control
The circuit recorded an elevation gain of barely ~22 meters over more than 6 kilometers of walking. The flat terrain characteristic of the northern parks of the City of Buenos Aires is ideal for the LISS protocol, as it eliminates effort fluctuations caused by steep inclines and allows the heart rate to stay perfectly bounded within the target zone.
Today, the routine transformed into a low-intensity urban trek (LISS — Low-Intensity Steady State). A walking route to connect with the pulse of the city, add kilometers toward cardiovascular health, and reflect beneath the shade of the Planetarium on the limits of human knowledge.
📍 The Route: Urban Trek through Palermo
The circuit mapped out a dynamic route through one of the greenest and most iconic lungs of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires:
1. Start: Intersection of Av. Juan B. Justo / Av. Intendente Bullrich with Av. Santa Fe.
2. Connection: Stretch along Av. Dorrego until merging into Av. Presidente Figueroa Alcorta.
3. Key Point: One loop around the iconic Galileo Galilei Planetarium.
4. Green Space: One loop around Plaza Dr. Benjamín Apthorp Gould.
5. Return: Closing the circuit by returning to the starting point at Av. Intendente Bullrich and Av. Santa Fe.
🏃♂️ LISS Workout Analysis
This type of brisk walking is essential for building an aerobic base without generating high joint impact. The session metrics showed optimal performance:
• Intensity and speed: A constant pace of 6.4 km/h was maintained, the exact range for a vigorous walk in the LISS zone (approximately 50–65% of max HR).
• Duration: 58 minutes, within the ideal recommended range of 45 to 60 minutes for this type of aerobic work.
• Pace stability: Ended with remarkable consistency—variations of barely ±3 seconds per kilometer between loops. This stability reflects excellent pace control, key to sustaining the desired metabolic zone.
• Daily volume: The daily step and active time targets were more than doubled, representing a substantial contribution to cardiovascular health and overall energy expenditure.
🌌 Reflection at the Foot of the Planetarium: Galileo and The Assayer
Walking around the Galileo Galilei Planetarium inevitably evokes the figure of the Florentine scholar and his perspective on the relationship between man and the universe.
In his celebrated work The Assayer (Il Saggiatore, published in Rome in October 1623), Galileo not only laid the foundations of the modern scientific method, but also set forth a deeply skeptical stance regarding the human claim to comprehend everything.
📜 The Myth of the Single Model
In Section 21 of The Assayer, Galileo reflects on the human tendency to constrain reality within our limited mental frameworks:
“It seems to me that I have observed that almost all men persuade themselves that Nature produces her works in the first place by the same method, and according to the same model, that they use for their own [...]. But if it ever happens that they run across something extremely far removed from their conceptions and from what they have seen before, they are so astounded that they declare themselves incapable of grasping or understanding it.
However, Nature has not the slightest care to accommodate her creations to the capacity of understanding of the human intellect; rather, her operations are infinite and her modes of acting inexhaustible.”
⚖️ Doubt vs. Cosmological Dogmatism
Galileo attacked the vanity of pretending to enclose the behavior of celestial bodies within the limits of the knowledge of his time. As he himself points out in the work:
“Certainly, it is a ridiculous and haughty presumption on the part of those who pretend to measure the universe and limit Nature's modes of acting to the meager notions that their minds have been capable of encompassing to this day. Whoever thinks he knows everything is because he has not understood the immensity of that which he does not know.”
This skepticism did not seek to discredit empirical observation, but rather to dismantle blind faith in closed models (such as Aristotelian geocentrism) and to serve as a reminder that physical reality always surpasses the observer's imagination.
📖 About The Assayer (1623)
Considered one of Galileo's four major works—along with the Sidereus Nuncius (1610), the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), and the Two New Sciences (1638)—this work is a manifesto of experimental rigor and the mathematization of nature. Its full title reveals the ironic and refined tone of his prose:
Il Saggiatore, nel quale con bilancia esquisita e giusta si ponderano le cose contenute nella Libra astronomica e filosofica di Lotario Sarsi Sigensano
(“The Assayer, in which, with an exquisite and just balance, the things contained in the Astronomical and Philosophical Balance of Lotario Sarsi Sigensano are weighed”).
The title plays with a precise analogy: the libra (steelyard scale) used by his opponent (Orazio Grassi, writing under the pseudonym Sarsi) is a crude Roman balance, whereas the saggiatore is the precision scale used by goldsmiths to weigh precious metals with millimeter accuracy.
🦗 The Fable of the Cicada (Favola dei suoni)
Within The Assayer, Galileo includes a famous passage known as the fable of the cicada (favola dei suoni):
Summary of the Fable
A man endowed with extraordinary curiosity enjoyed raising birds and observing how they transformed air into sweet and varied sounds. One night, hearing a delicate song near his house, he went out to look for it, thinking it was an unknown bird. Instead, he found a young shepherd blowing into a wooden flute.
Surprised by this new way of producing sound, he decided to travel the world to discover all possible ways to generate it. Throughout his journey, he discovered:
• Musicians who plucked strings with a bow (violin).
• Door hinges squeaking as they moved.
• People making the rim of a glass sound with the tip of their wet fingers.
• Insects stridulating through the movement of their wings.
• Organs, trumpets, whistles, stringed instruments, and the Jew's harp (that iron tongue placed between the teeth using the mouth cavity as a resonance box).
Convinced that he now knew every possible method of producing sound, he came across a cicada. He tried to decipher how it sang:
• He closed its mouth: the sound continued.
• He immobilized its wings: it kept singing.
• He observed that it moved neither scales nor any other visible part.
Finally, he lifted the shell of its chest and discovered thin, hard cartilages. Believing that the singing came from the vibration of these ligaments, he decided to pierce them with a needle to verify it. By pushing it deeper, he killed the cicada, remaining forever without knowing the real origin of the sound.
From that moment on, overcome by the modest awareness of his limits, whenever asked how sounds are produced, he replied:
“I know some ways, but I am sure that another hundred unknown and unimaginable ones may exist.”
Meaning and Epistemological Impact
Galileo uses this fable to convey two fundamental teachings:
1. Epistemological Humility: No matter how much we investigate, there will always be phenomena whose true cause eludes us or is infinitely more complex than our hypotheses suppose.
2. The Analogy with Celestial Phenomena: If we cannot even comprehend with certainty how a cicada produces its song when we hold it in our own hand, by what right do we pretend to explicitly explain the nature of distant and inaccessible phenomena, such as comets?
As Galileo himself concludes, the difficulty of understanding the cicada's song while it sings in our hand "amply excuses" our inability to resolve with certainty the mysteries of the cosmos at a great distance. An excellent lesson in scientific caution to apply with every step we take.
