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Published: September 12th 2006
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La Boca, a poorer neighbourhood
This place reminded me of Central America, except that it had paved streets. Last Saturday, Laurence and I headed out to one of Buenos Aires most famous neighbourhood’s, La Boca. We started our adventure on one of the cities thousands of buses that operate on nearly every street in this gigantic city. The buses are all different colour patterns and indicate which company they are owned by. I saw a sign on one bus that basically read, “ Cost of a bus 80,000 Canadian dollars, at that price you can fix it so that it looks better! Let’s just way that I’ve been in worse but there still not that pretty.
Over the past few decades, Argentina has privatized nearly every state owned company that they could get their hands on. It was part of the deals that were brokered by the IMF that sought to expand access to Argentina’s market in exchange for loans that were supposed to help develop the country’s economy. What has resulted is that everything from transit to sanitation to potable water is now serviced by the private sector. And so, it is crazy to see dozens of private bus companies cruising throughout the city in patterns that only make sense to them. That said, the coverage in
the city is amazing and it is easy to get anywhere on a bus.
As we headed South, past the port, the train station and through the Plaza de Mayo it became evident that the southern portions of the inner city are not as friendly or clean a place as the posh neighbourhood where we live. As is typical, the poorer neighbourhoods have the pleasure of being home too much of the city’s freeway infrastructure and train lines. We exited the bus and found that the roads were filled with holes and the sidewalks were crumbling everywhere, La Boca is definitely a poor neighbourhood. With Laurence as my tour guide, we headed for the touristy area of La Boca, where tango dancers would take us by the hands and transform the street into an old time Milonga (Tango Bar). I was sure that the sun light would dim, that the streets would go quiet and that a short Latino man would light a cigarette and begin to sing, while playing his guitar. What we found was slightly less romantic and slightly tackier but it was fun nevertheless.
La Boca is an old neighbourhood that encircles part of the
original port site near the mouth of a tributary river to the River Plate. Historically, this has been a place where Italian immigrants from Genoa have settled upon their arrival in Buenos Aires. The neighbourhood is characterized by its colourful houses which were originally a product of poor immigrants painting their sparse sheet metal homes with boat paint that was typically brilliant colours. The neighbourhood is quite large and extends out away from the river, however it was the Caminito (made up of a couple of streets) that we were here to see. Most of the neighbourhood is run down with little of the colour that typifies the touristy parts.
The transition from desperate and poor to active and colourful happened instantly as we turned the corner to find the tourist trap that is the Caminito. We grabbed a coffee and took a moment to relax in an environment that was filled with peddlers trying to entice anyone with a wallet and a heartbeat into their café and tango show, which was of course always described as ‘the best in Buenos Aires’. After our coffee, we toured the street, looking at tacky tourist souvenirs and admiring some of the
Caught!
Well I figures we'd get caught anyways. That's some great tango! street tango that took place in front of most cafes. I’ll be honest that I find these types of tourist traps hard to handle as it seems that everyone is there only to get a little bit of my money and that’s it. The experience is usually far from authentic and the crowds are more foreign than any you would encounter elsewhere in the city. That said, the sun was shining and I was spending a Saturday afternoon in Buenos Aires with the women I love…. Not bad! After a marginal lunch in one of the tourist trap restaurants we headed back home to our nice and clean neighbourhood, reminded that we had in fact chosen a nice place to live. The experience continues to be great and it still seems a little surreal that we’re actually in Buenos Aires.
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mormor
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adventure
Hi it is so nice your are keeping us informed. glad you stayed at the place you came to, keep having a great time Laurence and Jason, it is very interesting to read about it. love Mormor and Morfar.