Last Sunday we took the bus from La Plata to Buenos Aires to visit the neighbourhoods of La Boca and San Telmo. La Boca (Spanish for ‘The Mouth’) is a working class barrio (‘neighbourhood’) on the mouth of the Río Riachuelo known for it’s colourful wooden houses, it’s football team (Boca Juniors) and for being the birthplace of the tango and of Lunfardo, the colourful slang spoken by Porteños (residents of Buenos Aires).

It’s a place where the observant visitor can look beyond the attractions and see some of  the reality of the poverty that many residents of Buenos Aires live in. The barrio is known for it’s ‘conventillos’,  houses with several families living together inside.

It’s also a popular tourist attraction, especially ‘El Caminito’, a street with colourful houses, cafes, restaurants, art galleries and tango dancers. On this hot summer Sunday afternoon, it was very busy, with a mixture of Argentine and foreign visitors.

The home of  Benito Quinquela Martín, the barrio’s most famous artist, has been converted into a fascinating museum displaying some of his large, atmospheric paintings of the neighbourhood. This is well worth a visit.

The last time I visited La Boca was on a cold winter’s day nearly 6 years ago, and I have to say I preferred that experience , with far less people around it was possible to absorb the atmosphere and appreciate the place more.

Then we caught the bus to nearby San Telmo, another of Buenos Aires famous barrios. The Feria de San Telmo is held every Sunday in the Plaza Dorrego, the stalls selling souvenirs and antiques. I like the Plaza Dorrego, it’s very atmospheric and a good place to come for a drink or a coffee in one of the old bars that line the square. 

We arrived as the stall holders were closing down for the day, and there were so many people around it was nearly impossible to see anything easily or take photos. We walked around a little, had a coffee in one of the bars then watched a couple dancing tango in the square.

We looked at apartments advertised for sale in San Telmo in an estate agent’s window. They started from $US50,000 and we saw one beautiful apartment advertised at an incredible $US660,000. San Telmo is marketed to foreigners as an up and coming, bohemian neighbourhood; the markerteers conveniently forgetting to mention the quite obvious poverty in the area.

We’ve just come back from a few days in San Antonio de Areco,  a small, picturesque town in the country near Buenos Aires, famous for it’s colonial buildings and guachos . The photos will be online soon.

Standby for a special announcement tomorrow…A project I’m quite excited about.

Tango Dancers posing for the tourists in La Boca. 

The Historical Wax Museum, La Boca.

The colourful houses of La Boca. The tradition dates back to the Genoese heritage of the barrio’s early inhabitants. They were poor and worked mostly in the nearby port, and used paint left over from painting boats to paint their houses. There was never enough paint to paint one house in all one colour so they became multi-coloured.

Statue ‘La Madre’ by Juan B Leone in La Boca.

Lili with over sized figure, La Boca.

More oversized figures, La Boca.

Dancing the tango for tourists in La Boca.

These four photos show goods for sale in the Galeria de la Defensa, San Telmo.

Dancing the tango in the Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo.

The photos are copyright © Andrew Gibson. Please contact me for permission to use in any way. The photos are available for licensing under a Rights Managed license.