La Boca

La Boca walking tour

We were consciously trying to adjust our body clocks to approach New Zealand time.  There was a 9h difference (ignoring the date change) and by allowing ourselves to sleep till 0900, I figured we were already adjusting ourselves by 3h.

We took the last of the hotel’s yummy breakfast before checking out at 1045.  We left our luggage there and took a taxi to La Boca to do a free walking tour at 1130.  The outfit required reservation but we thought we’ve give it a try anyway.

Turning up at the meeting point, we talked to the guide.  It turned out to be a different outfit which was starting at 1100 and they were running late.  They charged ARS200pp and the guide being from the USA was happy to accept USD15 for the both of us (as we were low on pesos … the USD we had were not pristine and some people didn’t accept them).

La Boca wasn’t new to me but with a guided walk, the place was a lot more meaningful.  Some of the things I learnt included:

• Argentina is the most immigrated country in the world after the USA.  The difference is that at the time of the immigration, the local population was much smaller.  So, in other words it was far les gradual.
• Immigrants by far came from the working classes of Italy, followed by Spain.  This was to help propel the country’s industry forward.
• Minority immigrants tend to be grouped together by the majority.  Eg. Russians and various Eastern Europeans including Poles were called Russos.  Turks, Arabs and even Armenians were just called Turcos.  So, you can imagine Armenians weren’t very happy with that since they were trying to escape the Turks!
• Poor migrants lived in cramped conventillos when the promise of free land for new immigrants was withdrawn.
• Like Flamenco and Fado, Tango had origins in the misery of the people.  It started off as a dance between two men trying to out-macho and outdo with tripping  It was outlawed by the elite and only came back after gaining fame in France.
• The area had its own volunteer fire brigade as in the old days the professional firefighters didn’t really care about fires in the area.  Their attitude was “Let La Boca burn”.
• When I came here last, a statue of the Pope stood in the window in Caminito.  His arm broke and now we have a footballer there.  The guide said football is a religion here.
• Football is as strong as politics and religion put together perhaps. The president of the country was the president of the La Boca Juniors football club.  He ran for council, then mayor then president!

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Killing time and leaving

After the tour, we taxied to our part of town around 1300 for a brief break at a cafe.  We collected our bags and headed to Park Tower to camp at a friend’s hotel.  Melissa, crew/manager on our flight home tonight (at 0055), had swapped on this duty.

We got there around 1430 and had a good catchup.  She had tried to come along for our Galapagos trip but couldn’t get the time off, so there was much to talk about.

We headed out after an hour for a walk, some lunch and get some food for later.  I didn’t think I’d be able to last without another meal till our 0055 departure.  Melissa was kind enough to let her use her room to freshen up before we went downstairs to the hotel’s crew room around 1800.

It was noisy and social with crew from the UK and US.  There were no free facilities for making hot drinks so I spent my time writing and grazing on our sandwiches before heading to the airport by taxi before 2100.  The driver refused to use the meter but set a price that was about the same as the price from the airport; I guess it was the high-end of a fair price but included the tolls.

He dropped us off at the wrong terminal which meant we had a short walk in the cold.  Perhaps it was intentional as our terminal didn’t seem easy to access and there were lots of people taking the covered the walkway in both directions.

At the terminal three hours prior to our 0055 departure, we tried to check-in.  The agent took our details and asked us to return at 2330, which was 90 minutes prior to departure.  He was quite confident we’d get on the flight on standby as there were seats but there were cargo considerations still.  The ground handlers at Buenos Aires were very nice and helpful today and also two years ago when I did the same flight.

Killing some time while waiting, I spent the last of our remaining pesos and wandered around.  Interestingly, one of the airport unarmed security guards was in a wheelchair.  I suppose he would be good for monitoring the surroundings and performing checks; perhaps not so effective in giving chase or putting up a fight.

We got our boarding passes a little before the appointed time and went airside for boarding.