Day 199 - Buenos Aires

  Buenos Aires, Argentina
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Our hostel room was boiling hot and sandwiched between the reception and the kitchen, so it was no surprise when we were woken up before 8am by noisy voices.

We had some brekkie and then headed straight into the closest neighbourhood, 'San Telmo', which is famous for its association with the Tango, that most Argentinian of dance steps! 

We wandered through the streets following a map which marked out places of interest, but in truth nothing was that interesting so we were happy just ambling around the area.

As we got to the edge of San Telmo and close to the boundary with 'La Boca', we decided to follow the guide book's advice and catch a bus into the heart of La Boca, which can be a bit dangerous apparently.

10 mins later we were pulling up a block away from 'Caminito', a street replanned by a famous local artist, to include homes made of corrugated metal which were then painted a variety of bright colours.

This 100 metre long street is now a major tourist attraction (based on the many large tour buses milling around) and is home to many local artists, street performers etc.





At the top of the road was a bizarre little balcony, complete with statuetes of President Peron, his wife Eva (Evita), and - unless I'm very much mistaken - Diego Maradona?!



After soaking up the sugar sweet tourism of the street, we walked 5 minutes up the road to "La 'Bombonera', which translates as 'the sweetie/candy box', the affectionate if misleading name for the Boca Juniors football stadium.



Boca are probably the most famous club in South America and many of the greatest players to have ever played the game have worn their fabled Blue & Gold shirts.
 
These include a certain Mr Maradona (who moved from Boca to Barcelona for a world record fee), but since then the list includes: Juan Sebastian Veron, Claudio Cannigia (remember him?), Gabriel Batistuta, Carlos Tevez, even Nobby Solano (!) and last but by no means least, the current fan's darling, Juan Roman Riquelme... who also happens to be my favourite player in the world who doesn't wear the red of Liverpool.

They have a really cool photo gallery which shows every player to have represented the Boca first team, which is a really great idea.

Here's a very youthful Maradona...

 

...Veron (with hair!)...

 

...Cannigia...

 

...Batistuta...

 

...Tevez...

 

...(errr) Solano...

 

...and Riquelme.



We managed to time our arrival perfectly at 12:01pm, thus missing the hourly stadium tours by ONE minute and requiring a painful 59 minute wait until the next one started. (It was a bit pathetic that they wouldn't let us join the group that had just left) 

At least this gave us the perfect reason for buying tickets to the Boca Museum, which was very interesting (although obviously nowhere near as good as the museum at Anfield, CLEARLY!) so we managed to fill the time easily.

There are plenty of exhibits eulogising about their favourite son, otherwise known to us English as "that fat permed coke-addled Hand of God son-of-a-&%$£*", Diego Maradona.

In fairness he's arguably the greatest footballer of modern times and maybe even the greatest of all time, so I couldn't begrudge him the floor-to-ceiling photo!



I resisted the temptation to pose with the biggest Maradona statue while flipping him the bird, showing my backside etc because I had a feeling that the middle-aged businessmen wandering around with their wives might turn into howling banshees and rip me limb from limb.

Upstairs you could get a quick peek through the glass at the stadium & pitch...



...and then you could admire some of the trophies that Boca have won over the years, which was pretty impressive by any team's standards...





...this haul included the 'Copa Libertadores', the South American equivalent of our European Champion's League.



They also had an exhibit showing the current team and Katie was able to take a photo of one of the greatest footballers alive today... with Juan Roman Riquelme ;)



At 1pm we joined the group and headed off through the stadium, spending plenty of time in each area of the stadium: from the plush 'corporate' side...



 

...to the home 'kop' end, home to the most fanatical supporters.

 

After learning about the history of the club and their stadium we were allowed to walk into the kop end, and to try and imagine the atmosphere here on match day.

 

It was fantastic to be back in a stadium which wasn't "all seater", and I realised that I'd give anything to be able to watch a game here.

 

It must be incredible to watch games from down here.

 

After that we were allowed onto the hallowed turf itself, which was an incredible feeling considering that I was literally walking in the footsteps of some of the world's greatest players.

 

I would have LOVED to been able to kick a few balls around out there, it was special enough even without the crowd! 



From there we walked around the corner and climbed up into the press area. 

Here we were able to sit in the manager's 'hot seat', in the room used for press conferences, which was also pretty cool.

"Boca Juniors announce signing of Suffolk Legend Al Fey for a bag of crisps and a can of coke" ;)



We then visited the home dressing rooms, surprised at the Bury St Edmunds sports centre-esque feel of this mighty room, it was really in a state of disrepair.

Still, which players have sat in this very seat over the years?! 

 

As you can see the room itself was really basic, not at all what I'd expected.



It was cool to be able to see the home showers & baths, although the thought of 15 naked sweaty men wasn't exactly necessary!

 

Finally we read some of the messages of worship left by their fans in the players' pigeonholes.

"Dear Jim, please could you fix it for me..."



The tour was about an hour long in total; I was amazed at how much they let you see and how weak the security was seemed to be compared to other stadiums that I've visited in Europe.

I guess when the ground is full of 50,000 drunk local nutters on match day they're not too worried about terrorists!



The ground itself is surprisingly small and the steep walls start incredibly close to the touchlines, so there's almost no space to take corners or throw-ins!

In that way it's like a very large 5-a-side pitch which has somehow grown into this incredible cauldron of passion.

All I wanted to do now was to try and get tickets for their game on Sunday v Colon Sante Fe!

After the stadium we got back onto the #29 bus and headed back into the centre of the city for some lunch.

After lunch we walked back to the main square to have a better look at the Pink (Presidential) Palace.

 

This is a better shot of the main square.



We then killed a bit of time in the hostel before being collected at 7:30pm (an hour late !) for our "Tango dinner" that Katie had arranged with the girl on the front desk. 

I didn't know quite what to expect, but Katie had booked us a package where we had an hour of introductory tango lessons, followed by a 3 course meal while watching a professional tango show. Sounded good.

We were the last couple to be collected and then the bus took us into the heart of 'Recoleta'.

They directed us upstairs to the dance studio, where our instructor showed us how to do the correct tango hold and some basic steps.

The group started off with about 30 of us, which was bit crowded and 15 mins later ANOTHER 15 people showed up, so there was no room to swing a cat, it was way too crowded.

Katie was dragged up at one point to dance with the instructor, and was clearly mortified about it! ;)



We were divided into boys & girls and drilled to learn our steps...





...before being given one last demonstration...



...and then having to put it all together!

It was actually really good fun, I just wish that we didn't have to knock into everyone the whole time because we were so crammed in. 



Despite banging into all the other couples which was highly frustrating (especially if they didn´t apologise!), we enjoyed our hour, collected our certificates...



...and looked forward to some food after working up quite an appetite!

We weren't expecting much from the meal, but the food was actually very good. All 3 courses were tasty, plus we got a bottle of wine EACH, which is never a bad thing, right?!



As we were finishing our deserts the lights dimmed and the show started, with the 4 piece band above us pumping out the live music...

 

...before the dancers exploded out onto the stage.



Tango was apparently invented in BA, in the working class "barrios" of San Telma & Boca, and you can see how very proud they are of that fact.

You see signs of tango everywhere across the city and the show recreated some of that history.
 
While the dancers changed costumes, lounge singers would come out and belt out a number while wandering around the audience, which was quite cool.

This bloke especially was a bit of a legend, he was like Tony Bennett!





The standard of the dancing itself was fantastic, but thankfully it didn't inspire Katie to master the Tango when we get back to London, thank the Lord!





The dancers also wound their way around our tables, but mostly did their thing on the stage in front of us; it was all very impressive.





At one point the dancers came into the audience to dance a few steps with some lucky punters, and I wasn't too upset when the most attractive of the female dancers asked me if I wanted to dance.

Shame the flash didn't work on the camera though; was it a coincidence?! :(

 

Soon after that it was time for the final flourish, before which we gave them a well deserved standing ovation!



At the end of the show we were whisked back onto the bus and back to our hostel, which took aaaaaages, but at least they got us home before midnight!

It had been a long day, with lots packed in, so we went to sleep very happy after our first proper day in Buenos Aires, after experiencing a day of football, tango, steak and passion! ;)


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx