A visit to "La Boca"

With little of our normal missionary assignment available to do during the holiday weeks, we've enjoyed a little more "tourism" activities instead. On Saturday Dec 28 we joined a group of other senior missionaries for a long bus ride to the La Boca neighborhood. It's located in the southeast corner of the metropolitan area, at the mouth of a river (hence the name, which means "the mouth"). The area was originally settled by Italian immigrants, and actually tried to succeed from Argentina once in 1882.

The downtown area is distinctive for its beautifully colored buildings and a lively central area of shops and restaurants.

This distinctive building is one of the first to greet you as you approach the neighborhood. To the right is the famous "Caminito" or little path, a cobblestone-paved pedestrian walkway that highlights the beautiful colors of the buildings and assorted monuments and memorials along the way. To the left is a similary colorful street but one filled with restaurants and craft shops. It's a great place to find discinctive souvenirs of Argentina, including fine jewelry and hand-made crafts (mixed with typical mass-produced junk).

You also get a taste in this first building of one of the fun quirks of La Boca: the life-size cartoonish manequins that gaze down from many of the upper balconies. I guess in this first building you can pay a little extra to climb up and stand on the balcony to have your photo taken from below. So exciting.

First taking a little walk up the Caminito, you see the memorials along the sides of the buildings as you walk the cobblestone street.

Here is a plaque titled "La Musica" honoring the great Italian music tradition, and a monument recognizing volunteer firefighters. (CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO VIEW LARGER SIZE.)

This mural titled "Waiting for the Ship" gives a historic look back at the time when this area was one of the main ports of Buenos Aires. The next tender sculpture recognizes motherhood.

I had to take a photo of these wonderful cobblestones.

Isn't this street fun?

At the top of the walk, we cut across a back lane to a restaurant that we were informed was NOT to be missed; having been there now, we agree. There is evidence that even Brigham Young might have come here to eat—get it??

To get in to the seating area of the restaurant, you walk right through the area where they are grilling the meat, in Argentina "parilla" style.

These "chorizo" sausages are a national specialty:

It was a feast to remember!! We stayed for a couple of hours and then rolled our way out and back to the street. Oh, our visit was a little spoiled by this sign near the restrooms:

The other main street of the downtown area is filled with souvenir shops and restaurants. Many of the restaurants feature live singers or tango dancers to provide entertainment to diners and passers-by:

The characters in the balconies are always fun:

Sometimes the characters come down to ground level too! Here's a classic drinker of maté, the national beverage; and Bonnie trying hard to obey the sign that says no touching:

Finally a couple of views of another national hero, the current pope, who is from Argentina:

We ended our visit with a walk along the waterfront, that, in keeping with the community theme, is also quite colorful!

Gotta mention one more feature of La Boca. It's home to one of Argentina's best professional soccer teams, the Boca Juniors. They play in a stadium called the Bombonera ("the bonbon box") that, naturally, has to be brightly colored. You'll see other buildings in the area painted just like the stadium and you know the occupants are devoted fans.