La Boca

Undoubtedly, if you've seen promotional photos of Buenos Aires, you've seen La Boca. Specifically, Caminito Street and its colorful "conventillos" (zinc buildings painted in wild colors). The images are ubiquitous, I suppose with good reason. Caminito is vibrant, historic and bursting with people and activities. This is the place of the city's original port, and the story goes that the precarious ramshackle homes of the dock workers were slathered with leftover paint from the shipyards. A visually over-the-top neighborhood was born, and today Caminito thrives as a tourist destination and open-air museum. Think of a mash-up between Pier 39 and Bourbon Street. The atmosphere is fun and festive. Music, dance, food and drink are all readily available for the tourists that descend from chartered buses without fail each and every day.
















La Boca is also home to the Boca Juniors Athletic Club - one of the most popular futból teams in the country. The stadium, popularly called "La Bombonera" (the candy jar) is a neighborhood icon, complete with a museum and a walk of fame where the footprints of the team's biggest stars are imprinted in the sidewalk. Soccer season had yet to begin when I was there, so sadly, I didn't get to see a game in action, or more precisely, the passion and zeal of the people who are diehard fans. Next time.


But Caminito and La Bombonera are far cries from truly representing La Boca. After all, Caminito is a mere 300 foot long cobblestone street, and the stadium is just that - a stadium, generally a world unto itself. The remainder of La Boca is very rough, very poor, and a place a tourist would never venture after dark. Even during the day, wandering into some of the neighborhoods surrounding the attractions is not exactly comfortable. But we did it. We walked through the side streets in small groups and were warned time and time and time again that we had better leave the area and if nothing else, put our flashy, expensive cameras away. One local woman was so insistent that her neighborhood was not safe for tourists, that she offered to pay bus fare for a couple members of our group. And that was in the light of day. So there's an underbelly of La Boca that most tourists will never see, and that's probably just as well. It's not the shantytowns that really are away from the tourist view, but to get a tiny glimpse of the less visible, less privileged porteño way of life in a city and country that is mainly middle class, La Boca offered just that.

Gaucho and Tango dancers along Calle Caminito