a yogi escape in buenos aires

Friedrich Tolentino Sungà Cortez-Romero from Karma Yoga

Buenos Aires is an incredibly artistic, historic and classical city. The aliveness of a city that converges the renaissance of Italy, Spain with a dash of France with the hot latin spirit of South American culture has created a hot pot of chaos in Argentina's capital.

While chaos can be the perfect backdrop for fascinating experiences amongst the riots, gratified walls and charming architecture of the latin city, I certainly felt that my feet were losing their grip as I tripped on the broken pavements where one must play 'dodge the doo doo' while hopping over random garbage dumps and the cracked pavements. A novelty to a city that seems to be constantly under construction despite the marvellous buildings that sing to the charm of old-gothic-not-changing-anytime-soon.

And when I need to ground myself in my life, I seem to find myself drawn to the tranquility one can find on the yoga mat - thankfully the Eco Yoga Park on the outskirts of the city was the zen hit my soul was searching for.

The Eco retreat is one that offers visitors the opportunity to perform service through work on the farm. We would wake at dawn and get in to the garden planting and picking vegetables. There would be wonderful meditations in the white temple that echoed as we played percussion or passed wind in an awkward hatha yoga posture. All the food was sourced from the land; natural, organic, vegan and tasty while the company was delightful as the group would sit together or make a secret dash to the ice cream maker in the farm across the field nearby (you didn't hear that from me).

Mum and I spent 8 days of wonder-love zen enjoying great farming, food, company, movies and meditations amongst the stunning backdrop of Argentinian agriculture and skyline. If the opportunity comes along; I fully recommend it. "There's more pleasure in giving than receiving" an Indian cabbie once said to me, this retreat certainly gave us the opportunity to realise it.