Jesus was a Boca Juniors Fan!

Our last day we are scheduled to check out from our flat at 7:00 pm. So we really have the whole day. We have a regular breakfast in our flat of strong coffee (mine with lots of milk) and medialunas.

We head out to check out La Boca and La Bombonera (the soccer stadium for Boca Juniors). I have to admit, we didn't do any research on this area and hadn't really planned on coming here, but we had the whole day and could explore somewhere in the main city, so Boca it was. I have to tell you, other than the soccer stadium, I would never go back. It's basically like an Argentina version of Tijuana, Mexico without the zebra painted donkeys. Totally aimed at tourists, and not the savvy ones at that. It was beyond cheesy and actually kind of sad to me. Also, this is one of the few places I actually didn't feel comfortable. I kept making sure I hadn't gotten anything stolen from me. It seemed really seedy to me.

Anyway, the stadium. I'm not a soccer fan, but I am really glad we decided to come here. It's just so much a part of the culture here. They had a museum that we passed on, but we wanted to check out the stadium for sure. Entrance into the stadium was $10AR, with the tour it was $14AR. Kind of a no-brainer for us. They even had a tour in English, but somehow we missed the area that it was suppose start from. No biggie. All of a sudden I have a Latin man in my face hugging and kissing me and saying things in another language that sounds very exciting! OH! It's our Brazilian/Hollywood Pizza Delivery Man friend from Los Pecanes! How funny is that? He just happened to be in BA now, in La Boca, on this very tour. I love travel serendipity! I ask him his name again (the first time I had been in a group and drinking wine--tee hee). But I don't think any of that mattered because I still didn't understand him. Sounded like Chicago, but with lots of Portuguese sounds. It doesn't matter. We then find out that there actually is an English tour at the back of our tour. Pizza guy kind of meanders between our group and his. Nobody cares.

The tour is pretty interesting. A few cool facts:

The stadium name is actually Estadio Alberto J. Armando, but everyone calls it La Bombonera. When it first open it's doors, the media were given little boxes of chocolates a gifts. They noticed how the stadium actually looked like a box of chocolates, filled with fans and started to refer to it by that name. The nickname stuck.

The bleachers and walls move 4 cm, side to side, during games. yikes!

Diego Maradona, the Boca Jrs. GOD, has a box with yellow seats, they are original and purchased during the renovation. he is the only one with yellow seats, the rest are all blue.

He also gives a pep talk to the team before every game and sits beneath a little Virgin Mary statue he placed in the locker room during his tenure on the team.

The locker room would never make the cut here in the states. Totally shabby and beat up, nothing fancy. But it doesn't matter because they are such legends and heroes here. They (the city) want to knock the stadium down and build a fancy new one- sound familiar??- but the town folks won't go for it and are holding on to their property. So for now, it's not happening.

After our tour we head out to find some food. We find a kinda cute place to sit outside and manage to get totally ripped off for mediocre food. By far the most expensive lunch and beer we've had, service was horrible and not at all friendly, we got charged a surcharge for eating outside, etc. At least we had lots of people to make fun of. There was a guy posing for Maradona pictures (he was the old fat version) dumb photos boards with heads cut out for people to take lame tourist pictures in, bright cheesy buildings. We started to see how many "dumb tourists" we could find- camera's hanging around their necks, backpacks on their backs-sometimes with zippers 1/2 open, basically all the "no's" you are told not to do in all the travel guides. It was really a downer for us, so we bailed.

Got a cab back home and finished packing and cleaning up for our check out.

We arranged for a remise back to the airport through VIP, the same company I used when my Sheraton car didn't show. It was cheaper going back to the airport- $65 AR. So we tidied up and of course of all days, everyone was actually EARLY. HUH? We did check out, got all of our deposit back and then tried to figure out what to do for about an hour. So Greg ran over to our favorite little place El Sanjuanino to see if we could eat there with all of our luggage. It was only 7 so of course the place was empty! They totally knew us at this point, and this was the first time we sat inside! :) They were super nice and the food was excellent, of course. Then our driver shows up, EARLY and our doorman told him we were across the street. so off we went! Our waiter made a sad face to me "estas triste?" oh yah, muy triste. Ciao, BA!

More pictures of La Boca click here