Sunday, April 19, 2026· 10.4392, -75.2236
An Argentine Walnut in Caribbean Rubber
By Alejandro Rigatuso, Fundador y Director de Fundación Loros
Near the boundary of the Piedemonte farm, where the land of Fundación Loros takes its leave before yielding to another landscape, there stands a walnut tree that carries the story of a long journey. Its seeds arrived from Argentina, crossing borders tucked inside some pocket or suitcase, and ended up here, on the Colombian Caribbean coast, planted inside an old tire that now serves as its pot.
It was Rosangela, Chiarita, and Alejandro who put it in the ground. The tree is still young, almost fragile to an eye that doesn't know how to look. But whoever crouches down to study it closely will see new shoots pushing through at the tips of the branches, flushed with reddish hues — that particular coloring that in plants signals something is working, that life is running its course without asking anyone's permission.
The tire is no decoration: it is pure ingenuity, the practical solution of those who work with what they have. And there stands the walnut, still and quiet among the undergrowth and the tropical light, carrying in its young wood the memory of another soil and the promise of putting down roots in this one.
About the author
Alejandro Rigatuso · Fundador y Director de Fundación Loros
Alejandro Rigatuso arrived at Fundación Loros after years as Vice President of Growth Marketing at Toptal, bringing with him an unconventional perspective: he knows an animal is well by its eyes, "bright, wide open." Lorenzo, the first parrot released, recaptured several times and always set free to fly again, marked him forever. At dusk, around five-thirty, you'll find him at the Mirador de las Ciénagas or wandering around Cerro El Peligro, envisioning observation towers and hundreds of native parrots soaring over a reserve that an entire community calls their own.
