La Boca

Images of La Boca

Expect: Colour, football and tourists. 

Pack: A Boca shirt, strepsils (all that chanting makes your throat sore) and a camera.

La Boca

La Boca is a barrio born and bred on the principle of ‘work hard, play hard’. Its proud blue-collar residents will tell you with an affable, yet uncompromising smile, that their winding waterfront is the home of tango, football and manual labour. For much of Buenos Aires’ prosperous past La Boca, situated at a turn in the Riachuelo river, was the only entranceway to the city. It was the central port and beating heart of the county’s trade. Immigrants, particularly Italian, flocked from across the globe, drawn by the supposed abundance of work. La Boca became a diverse mix of different cultures united by the hard life of the waterfront. It was, the story goes, out of an attempt to escape the dismal monotony of the docks that Argentina's two great passions were born; tango and football.  

Today, the port stands idle. A towering mast remembers the role of the sea, now mostly quiet and forgotten. Most tourists are here to wander the curving pedestrianised street dotted with cute colourful facades, known as Caminito. In recent years this picturesque area has become one of the most iconic images of Argentina, if not South America. Caminito is an absorbing sight, bursting with colour and bustling with activity. But don’t be fooled; this is more of an open-air, interactive, art exhibit than a true taste of La Boca – past or present. Designed by famous local artist, Benito Quinquela Martín, the caminito is inspired by the 19th century port dwellers, whose hurriedly built houses were made of scrap corrugated iron from the shipyard and coloured with paint left over from sprucing up the shipping barges. But it is hard to imagine that La Boca ever really looked like this as you swim through a sea of camera laden tourists, pushing aside the menus and flyers thrust at you by the numerous cafes, restaurants and tango bars.    

The real heart of La Boca stands two blocks away. Rising in dashing blue and yellow high above the ubiquitous two storey houses, La Bombonera, is where the barrio’s dreams are made and broken. Football club Boca Juniors is the pride and passion of this working-class district and anyone mildly interested in anything will give an arm and a leg to make it to a game. Note that such dedication is generally unnecessary, as tickets for most games can usually be bought outside the stadium on match day. Tip - bargain hard, very hard.

If you go, make sure you shout for the right team and leave any kind of objective reasoning at home. Boca are never in the wrong, the ref is always an idiot and any opposition player is a ‘hijo de puta’. It is also not at all unlikely that if Boca score someone to your side will, in a moment of overflowing emotion, grab you by the shoulders, stare deep into your eyes while screaming fanatically and whop a great wet kiss on your cheek before pulling you in for a hug that feels more like a judo move. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  

• Palermo
• Recoleta
• San Telmo
• La Boca
  • Images of La Boca
• Microcentro