La Boca (not the one near Cannes)

Hi people! 

Today was very sunny so I wore my sluttiest T-shirt to get tanned and walked around in the old neighbourhoods of San Telmo and La Boca, both equivalent of Kreuzberg and the Lower East Side during the shadiest times.

In San Telmo, there is a cute street flea market each sunday. Some street stands are selling (self proclaimed) antique stuff, 

Look on the upper left corner of the picture, you'll see a nice bird about to poo on the antique stuff.

- Is this antique? - For you baby, it could be

 

But mostly people sell ugly jewellery that even my feet could have done. The houses are all small, 2stores high max, but they look beautiful, and everything has a certain charm (ou un charme certain, comme dirait l'autre).

No, I can't take good pictures. Sorry about that.

I could write something about the story of the neighbourhood, but I'm too lazy, and I'm sure you don't care about it anyway.

Then... I took a bus to La Boca. It's not that far, I could have walked (and spared 0,17€ of bus fare). But La Boca is rated on the Dime Out Buenos Aires as one of the best place to get mugged, even if you stay on the big avenue (I personally find the 'dime out' joke very funny, but perhaps the sunburn I have makes me delirious). 

 

There is one place to visit in La Boca: this. They painted the metal sheets of some houses in the area, so that the flashy colours will make forget their crappiness, and at some point it became THE thing to see in BA. 

Before 'Pimp my house'

After 'Pimp my house'

La Boca is a place where you can sip the real, authentic Argentinian culture and way of life. I mean, they even have people dancing tango.

Low season for Tango

 The touristy things to see are within a grid of perhaps 5 blocks, where you can find shops, restaurants, cafés, other shops, other restaurants, and so on. 

According to the not-hot guy on the pictures, the shoes are made in Argentina.

Let's have a deep frozen pizza and some Coca Cola, this place is definitely for locals.

 There are also small stands, where people can help you if you want to see a real, authentic tango show, and the police makes sure everybody is safe.

Extras on the set of the clip 'I'm sexy and I know it'

The streets are paved, the bike lanes are new, there are trash cans everywhere. Everybody is happy!

Well, by everybody, I mean the tourists and the town hall, happy that cash is flowing. Who wouldn't be happy about it? The locals, the ones who are not lucky enough to work one of the restaurants in the grid? The ones who don't benefit from the whole area? Come on. They are poor, remember? Who cares about them? 

 

Because if you try to cross over, well... life kind of ends. There is basically nothing to see: no happy-colours house, no joycefull restaurants, nothing. The pavement is uneven, houses are more or less unoccupied. Back to real life. Where did the real, authentic Argentinian experience go?

There is even some kind of warning when you are about to cross the border to the real life.

I'm not saying everybody should go out there and get mugged. I just went a few meters in the no-man's land, took a few pictures and quickly turned back, more than happy that I managed not to wet my pants. 

I'm just saying. Open your eyes. Sure the colours look nice, everybody would agree (except the Gothic and the colour-blind people), but it's fake, sterile, impersonal... Mainstream. (By the way, this is not me saying I'm not mainstream - I have a blog, ergo I am – but hey, I don't go on saturdays to Ikea and don't listen to U2, so I could be worse) 

 

So, again, my advice: get a brain. Travelling is about learning to think by yourself. It's not because a lot of people visit a place that it's worth it!

See you around!

PS: In response to a last unfortunate comment, here's a picture of some of the animals around here. Enjoy. 

The zoom doesn't work that well, damn!!