La Boca - Don't play the odds

Flamboyant Caminito is a famous icon of Buenos Aires. All tourist guides recommend visiting the street museum where houses display vibrant colours to produce a very distinct flavour to this side of town. What the guides don’t tell you is that to visit Caminito you’ll have to go through La Boca, which is arguably the most dangerous neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

After touring the Sunday market on Defensa, we decided to walk all the way to Caminito via La Boca. As we entered La Boca, it became obvious that this place was a no-go zone for tourists: plenty of stripped-down cars with only the chassis left, buildings that looked bombed out, slum-like housing, many stray dogs and, even more worrisome, no tourists other than us walking in the neighborhood. Foolishly we thought that the “rough” part was only a short stroll and beautiful Buenos Aires would resume shortly. So we kept going.

At some point we saw groups of young guys hanging out at a crossroad. I was carrying our DLSR camera and there was no way I could hide the damn thing; it was dead obvious that we were tourists. In a moment of sanity we stopped and decided to head back to find another way around. After a huge detour, we did find another way to Caminito on a road that looked only a bit safer than the last one.

Caminito was nice, but the thought of getting back safely was preoccupying my mind. We chose to cut through a park on our way back while staying close to another family. We made it safe back to our apartment.

I was curious about La Boca and did an Internet search on the subject. Lo and behold, there are hundreds of accounts of tourists who were robbed – some at gunpoint and in broad daylight – in La Boca! The area is so bad that it has been listed a dangerous tourist trap on many Web sites. And not only that, many tourists complain that the police have been equally helpless with tourists in need. One tourist even reported that a police officer, upon learning that the tourist had been robbed at gunpoint, shook his head and declared “We do not know why you tourists keep coming down here”. Very reassuring.

Should you choose to visit Caminito (notwithstanding the neighborhood I am still unsure if it was worth it), heed the advice of many who were robbed and take the less-than-glamorous city tour bus. It may feel cheesy (just don’t mention this when you get back home), but at least you’ll still have that shiny DSLR camera and more importantly, the card that holds your priceless pictures.