Our visit to La Boca continued with a stop in the Caminito, a small street full of colorful houses and buildings.
La Boca has the reputation of being a bit rough around the edges, but in this area it is completely touristy.
While originally there was a stretch of colorful houses that reputed became that way because they used spare paint from the ships, it is now full blown style of the entire area.
Busloads of tourists pile off, wander the streets a bit, and pile back on. But it provides lots of income to the neighborhood so I guess it works.
Throughout the neighborhood are a number of fiberglass statues. With the current Pope being from Buenos Aires he is a favorite subject.
Apparently his twin with a soccer player.
The shops have taken over old buildings and are amusing to wander through them.
Most of the restaurants have a small dance floor where local dancers work hard for tips.
La Boca – sort of a funky Times Square for Buenos Aires. You have to see it when you are in town.
With the weekend by myself in Buenos Aires I was looking for something to do when I came across an 18km (11 mile) ‘Urban Trek’ across much of the city.
Note – with an all day hike this post is somewhat long…
The tour started out at the visitor information center in La Boca, a working class neighborhood along a seriously polluted river. It reminded me of Youngstown and Cleveland in the 1970s.
Our trek started out with 7 intrepid hikers and a guide. It would not finish that way.
The people of La Boca are proud of their neighborhood…
The center is a tourist area packed with colorful shops.
The area was setting up for a Sunday artist market.
We quickly left the area and passed by the colorful houses which legend says were painted various colors with the left over paint from ships.
La Boca is most known for their soccer team. The stadium is called La Bombonera, which translates to the Chocolate Box, from the shape of the stadium. The seating is in an incredibly steep pitch.
This 49,000 seat stadium is jammed in the middle of the neighborhood.
The walk through the rest of La Boca provided a number of interesting views.
Eventually we made our way to the San Telmo neighborhood, along with more diverse photo ops.
We passed under a freeway that once housed an interrogation center during the military dictatorship era in the 1970s. Sadly during the construction of the freeway they found remains of many who never made it out of the center. There are tributes to those lost during those times.
Port Madero is a new area of tall buildings built in the former port of Buenos Aires.
One young lady on our tour, who was from Mexico, took selfies at virtually every stop along the way. She was very entertaining in making sure she had the perfect look – and a great sport when I asked to photo her taking her photo.
Our final stop on the morning part of the hike was the Plaza de Mayo.
After a break for lunch we headed out for the afternoon with a new guide, and only 4 hikers.
Having spent a few weeks in this part of town I was familiar with much of what we were passing, but it was still entertaining as our new guide was a very funny young lady.
A review of San Martin Plaza and Palacio.
Pelligrini Plaza.
The Addams Family Palacio (not really but it seems as though it should be)
An finally a stop at Recoleta Cemetery. Our hike continued for another couple of miles but didn’t produce any interesting photo, or the photographer was too tired to take them 🙂
While long, it was a very worthwhile day. Both guides were knowledgeable and entertaining, and I was able to see many areas of the city that most don’t. If you have an entire Sunday to spend in Buenos Aires I highly recommend putting on your best walking shoes and heading out…
RDZ Photography 