Buenos Aires Querido II

So let’s back to this topic after the patagonian gap. I still have a few neibourghoods to describe. The previous post in this serie was dedicated to the microcentro and the luxury areas nearby, now I am moving to the South, to two very well-known places, present in any Buenos Aires guide and a must see according to them: San Telmo and La Boca

San Telmo

Honestly, the first few times I tried to visit San Telmo following the instructions in my guide I thought I had got it wrong cause I could not see absolutely anything remarkable around. A lot of antiques shops, galleries selling all sorts of weird stuff and not much else. Some streets almost completely fucked up and, in general, an uglier aspect compared to Recoleta. Well, what I can say… I wasnt impressed at all.

It took me a few more visits to find the place a bit more interesting and the key thing was to show up there during the weekend. The streets are then the same but the atmosphere changes and gets more lively. San Telmo on Saturdays and Sundays is a nice mess of people selling stuff, musicans playing and tango shows, all in the streets. Plus… millions of tourists.

Sometimes you can hardly move in the area surrounding Plaza Dorrego, central spot of San Telmo, but I actually prefer this rather than the boring atmosphere during the weekdays. Going there during the weekend makes you realize the place is good for hanging around. There you can find the famous Buenos Aires cofee shops, great places for eating pizza, drink beer or just buy some souveniers.

In San Telmo, like in La Boca you can clerly appreciate that very evident and almost desperate effort the city puts on selling itself by the exhaltation of the national topics (mainly tango, mate and soccer) in order to get the gringo’s money. Maradona looking guys charging for been in pictures, female and male tango dancers totallly dressed up looking for the same thing, get a mate cup with your name on it places etc etc…Anyway, regardless of this not so authentic atmosphere, the place is still good for a walk.

About whether it is a nice area to live or not, the thing is that when I was looking for a house I visit a few places in San Telmo but I ended up discarding it, even though the unbeatable location, not in the very stressing and business oriented mirocentro but still very near. But I didnt really like the neibourghood. In the first place cause I wasnt offerred real shared house but rather hostels adapted to be it. The rooms had lock and there was no living room (which for me is the basic thing in the “shared house” concept). Prices were extremely high and in dollars of course, taking advantage of the (undeserved?) reputation which attracts plenty of gringos, mostly americans, looking forward the argentinian inmersion in tango and Quilmes

Secondly, San Telmo has this reputation of been a bit ugly during the night (and ugly here means dangerous). It is true that those times I was there late the atmophere was quite nastier than in my quiet Belgrano. Very sordid out of the main spots, rubish everywhere and some not very adivsable people hanging around.

Anyway, that is San Telmo and you have to see it. Hopefully you got the point and will do it on a weekend and avoiding unnecessary late night visits (well ok, it is not the Bronx, just a bit nastier than the rest of the city center). And I say to avoid only unnecessary visits because, even though I havent experience it myself, I have heard it is a good area to go out. And I believe it, I am pretty sure there are hundreds of drunk american girls looking forward improving their Spanish hanging around there.

La Boca

La Boca is located more to the South, close to the radically different Puerto Madero and around the “Riachuelo” the most dirty and stinky river I have never seen. The Manzanares in Madrid is a crystal clean lake in comparision. Apparently there have been hundreds of proyects to restore this afluent of the Rio de la Plata but none of them got anywhere. The water smells terrible and you can see all kind of shit floating on it (cars included).

This place is known to be even more dangerous than San Telmo, I cant really explain why but I feel more confident there. It looks to me like the typical low class working people neibourghood, not worse than that. And, besides, on the contrary to San Telmo, La Boca is definitely a colorful place. There are these few but very worthy to see streets right in the middle called Caminito. Just ignore the Maradona clone and the millions of souvenirs shops and galleries for gringos and focus on the aspect of the houses there. They way they are made, by using all sorts of materials and colors, is not casual. La Boca was, during the inmigration periods, the main disembark point for thousands and thousands of europeans, mainly italians and spanish. Most of these people were extremely poor (no wonder they left Europe) and didnt have the resources for building proper houses so they had to made them out of any stuff they had handy. The result is quite remarkable…

No description of La Boca would be complete without mentioning the local footballthem: Boca Juniors. And to speak about Boca Juniors is to speak about Maradona, the main argentinian idol although very critizied lately because of his performance as the national team coach and the insults he addressed to the media when the time made it in the last game to the World Cup after a non very succesful qualification phase. In spite of this and his turbulent (saying it in a very polite way) trayectory, the guy is still venerated here, probably because of all he achieved from his very humble origin. The impression you get is that Maradona has a special treatment no matter how often he fucks things up.

The Boca Juniors stadium is called La Bombonera and is located by the end of Caminito. A few days after I arrived in Buenos Aires, Davis and I had the chance to watch a match there and the atmosphere was definitely quite spectacular. Although I am probably not the right person to judge this, I think I have just attended three football games in my life. Anyway, I have the impresion that people takes football much more seriously here. Just to give you an idea, in Argentina, when a game or any public event is happening nearby shops cant sell any alcohol. There was a day I couldnt by beer in a grocery because it was close to a concert’s place.

Another example, the cheapest 20 pesos ticket we bought that day allowed us to watch the match from one of the areas behind the goal (populares they are called), but the argentinians going with us made sure we would go the non-fanatic one. The other one was for the real Boca supporters (barras bravas), called “La 12″. Apparently it is not a great idea to be there if you are not really into that atmosphere. Basically you can get beaten up if you are not entusiastic cheering the team. Honestly, I dont know if it is also like that in Spain. Anyway, I guess you get the picture, football here is a big deal and the main resource I have when I need some casual talk with an argentinian I dont know.

Tags: Buenos Aires