coming full circle: buenos aires, round 2

i know i haven't updated in awhile, and i have a good excuse: traveling. my friend bri and i decided awhile ago to make the trek up to iguazú falls (one of the new 7 wonders of the world, an added bonus) to cap off our trip. we bussed through buenos aires, stayed for three nights, and then took an overnight, 18 hour bus ride up to tropical iguazú. we started in buenos aires with a trip around the city-- walking. buenos aires is a huge, cosmopolitan, city-that-never-sleeps kind of place. that being said, walking long distances is painful, taxis are expensive, subways aren't direct enough, and the buses run so infrequently that it's not even worth it. we did manage to wear out our feet the first full day here and walk for almost 10 hours because the subway system was down. when we came back, our hostel had planned a party and brought us to pacha, one of the biggest nightclubs/boliches in buenos aires. it's located right on río de la plata, the monstrous river (that appears to be an ocean, because it has tides) that surrounds BA.

avenida 9 de julio. it's named after the date when argentina officially became independent from spain (1816). the street in BA is a city block wide and takes normally two to three green lights to cross the whole thing.

while we were walking around palermo (an area of the city), we stumbled upon some cool graffiti

bigger is better? the bottled drinks here are much bigger than in mendoza

while we were trying to find an art museum, we walked by a zoo

we ate lunch at a famous taco factory

spicy

the next day, we woke up late and walked around calle florida for a little bit. calle florida is a street right around the corner from our hostel and has tons of stores and street vendors selling everything from plastic toys and artisan crafts. we made it back to our hostel just in time to be herded out on a bus to the boca soccer game we had registered for!

there are bands that also play on calle florida

la boca vs. banfield soccer game. little did we know, if boca won this game, they would be champions of their league...a big deal!

boca games can be especially scary because of the barra bravas that follow the team. read about the barra brava's here.

because the boca fans are so dangerous, we had to sit on the banfield side

every half hour, the boca fans would roll down a different flag. CABJ stands for "club atlético de boca juniors" and jugador número 12 represents the fans. get it? the fans call themselves the 12th player...

the boca stadium is located right in the heart of la boca

quite literally: "although we're not the only ones, we decided we're the best"

after the game (boca won handily, 3-0), half the population of buenos aires rushed to the obelisk in the center of town to celebrate boca's win and new role as champions

so happy.

it's a good thing bri and i didn't try and go on our own. the area of la boca is known to be especially dodgy at any time of day. the guides from the hostel kept their eyes out for us and near the end, when banfield was losing, they made us put our cameras away. because banfield was losing so badly, their fans had lost interest in the game and were now looking for unsuspecting tourists to rob. several people from the hostel got their cameras, wallets, and passports (who brings a passport to a soccer game!?) stolen in the last minutes of the game. after extra time expired, we were herded out of the stadium, and back to the bus. we ended up having to run out of the stadium staircases to beat the mad rush that was behind us, and i think everyone finally took a deep breath when we made it safely back to the hostel.