La Boca The Colourful Darker Side To Buenos Aires

Staying in San Telmo, we were only a few streets away from the La Boca area, one of the main places that people advised not to go at night. It was hard to see what could be so different. San Telmo was a strange mix of old colonial buildings, bohemian cafés, fancy bars, then people drinking on doorsteps, scrawling graffiti everywhere, living in alcoves and searching through bins.

The hostel just around the corner from us holds a walking tour, so we decided to tag along. We started in the San Telmo area where we saw Mafalda, a famous comic character I'm Argentina. We also visited an old mansion that had been deserted years ago and now acts as a an antiques centre.



Then, we took the short bus ride into La Boca. We went straight to the Caminitos, an area of small houses which are all painted in bright colours. Apparently the houses are so brightly coloured as the people were so poor that they used to ask the ships in the port if they had any spare paint, meaning every house was a different colour to the next.







Now a days it's a big tourist attraction, and there were lots of people milling around. Most of the cafés were also putting on tango shows so it was a really nice place to be.

We eventually got off the main road and found a restaurant with a lovely outdoor courtyard and had a guy playing the guitar. We treated ourselves to a Choripan and a beer before going out into the chaos again.



Next we headed to the stadium of La Boca Juniors and finished our day off at the PROA art museum which had an amazing exhibition by Ron Mueck of really life like models, I expected them to start blinking at any second!


It was a great afternoon and definitely one of the highlights of our time in BA. We left before we got to see the darker side of this bright and colourful area.


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