Borges Memorial Maze

A short drive east of San Rafael, at the historic Finca Los Alamos estancia, sits an unusual tribute to Jorge Luis Borges: a 1,300-square-metre hedge maze designed to encode references to his fiction. The maze, opened in 1995, was the work of landscape designer Randoll Coate, who studded the pattern with images visible only from above — a tiger from "The Aleph", a hexagonal library from "The Library of Babel", a clock from "The Garden of Forking Paths".

You can wander the maze itself from inside, but the real reveal is a viewing platform from which the symbolic shapes become legible. Visits are typically combined with a tour of the historic estancia, which has hosted writers and artists since the late nineteenth century.

Reservations are usually required. The Finca is around 30 minutes' drive from San Rafael.

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A story
Borges himself spent time at the Finca Los Alamos in the 1950s, drawn by his friendship with the Bombal family. The maze was built decades later, designed by Randoll Coate — the British landscape architect who specialised in symbolic mazes — and incorporates references to Borges's stories throughout its layout, including a tiger, a clock, and a hexagonal library.

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