Landon and Lou made it into Buenos Aires on the 31st of January, and met me at Dakar Motos working on my bike. We had a nice BBQ dinner with a few friends at the shop that night, camped out for one more night at Dakar, and then took off into the city the next morning to secure our apartment in San Telmo, only a few blocks west of Puerto Madero. The apartment complex is around 120 years old and has 15 foot ceilings, three rooms, a spiral iron staircase, marble floors and a nice patio in the middle. Settling in with such little gear was easy and comfortable.
In the old ports at the southeast side of Buenos Aires sits the classic location know as La Boca. Home to the Boca Junior football club, a major shipyard, and some of Argentina´s greatest artists, the activity of this colorful neighborhood is vibrant. Walking along the harbor with escalating bridge ways and mobile cargo ships, the sound of Tango came from a distance. Walking closer to the curl in the harbor where the center of La Boca is located, 100 year old cafes and restaurants with live tango lived beside old apartments of vibrant primary colours. The construction of this area took place at the beginning of the industrial revolution when Argentina made a great deal of wealth through it´s ports. The buildings were constructed of rock and wood foundations with corrugated steal walls and cast iron balconies with wooden floors. Obviously the living quarters for dock workers during the early 20th century. Each construction may have looked as if it were to collapse at any moment, however, it seems that the overwhelming amount of paint that has been added over the years has kept these structures erect.
Landon and I went to visit the Museo Quinquela MartÃn, a legendary Argentine painter who captured the amazing work of dock workers in La Boca in the middle of the 20th century. His artwork shows the struggle and hard work, the sweat and blood, the hot and cold experience of La Boca laborers. His stroke work is quick and clean and I was very impressed with his shadowry.
Walking back to the apartment, we passed the La Boca Junior Football Club stadium that stood out like the Obelisco, a staple of Buenos Aires that sits in the middle of Ave 9th of July in it´s phallic symbolization of the liberation of the Argentine Republic.
Visiting La Boca, Buenos Aires, February 2nd, 2008.
