La Boca & San Telmo

  Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tuesday, December 23, 2008

La Boca & San Telmo

23th December - Fútbol, La Bombonera

Kick-off

Talking of wars - we went to the championship deciding match between Boca Juniors & Tigre at La Bombonera Stadium in La Boca. It's called La Bombonera (the chocolate box) because the stands rise so steeply, it looks like a round box. This is where Diego Armando Maradona honed his football punching skills (La Mano de Dios - mi culo). The stadium is so rickety that the whole thing rocks when the crowd bounce up & down chanting synchronised abuse - & this is a concrete structure !!!

We had to go with a tour party, it is too dangerous to go alone, but we could only get tickets at the Tigre end, so had to be careful not to cheer for Boca. They segregated the fans by leaving a 1/3 of the terraces empty between them with lines of shielded, baton wielding police guarding them. We were searched 3 times for offensive weapons as we went in. The locals had a good scam going - they sold us bottles of water before the security checks, then the security guards confiscated them as we went in (I expect they were re-cycled).

Tunnel

The teams came on through a long pump-up tunnel which extended right onto the pitch, for protection against flying objects.
The crowd were vocal but good natured (compared to Millwall) but the match was not very exciting - Tigre had to win by 2 goals for the championship - so Boca played possession football until Tigre scored. Then it got livelier, but the score remained at 1-0 & honours were shared.
Directly the final whistle went the pitch was invaded - I don't know how they got over the moat ! Fire-crackers were set off & everyone jumped up & down making the stadium rock again.

San Telmo

San Telmo

On Sundays, San Telmo, Buenos Aires' oldest barrio, is closed to traffic as masses of people invade Plaza Dorrego in search of antiques - well actually, most come to just people watch. There are street bands (there was a good authentic Argentinean "Irish Band"), food stalls & hundreds of bric-a-brac stalls. In the evening the locals were supposed to tango in the Plaza but it rained so the only tango dancing was done by a man with a female dummy - he was quite funny.
There were dozens of posters stalls, the most popular posters by far, were of Maradona doing his "Hand of God" leap, The Beatles (but with Paul McCartney as he is now, superimposed on old classic photos) & of course, Evita.