Argentine Football : Boca vs. Colon

Today the Boca Juniors are playing their final match for the season to win the cup. When we woke up late this morning at 11:30, of course we had no tickets and no chance to see the game live. However it was such a beautiful day, we thought why not head down to La Boca area of Buenos Aires to watch the game in the street with the other Argentines, eat some street chalchica and drink quite a bit of Quilmes beer.

We arrived around 2pm in La Boca. The streets here resemble the south Bronx with dusty broken up cobblestones and colorfully painted walls. You can see old train tracks that lead to nowhere and there and many old heavily weathered buildings. After wandering La Boca for an hour, we got right up to the bright canary yellow and royal blue stadium. Everybody was outside... T-shirts optional, cooking, eating, drinking (soda) and chanting for Boca. It was at least 35 degrees outside and the sun was beaming!

We tried to get tickets at the counter, but it was totally sold out. Bummer. All the way to Boca freakin Argentina and no tickets.

Still feeling excited from the energy of the people, we walked around refusing to leave when a scrubby looking dude walked by and said, "Tickets!" Oh schnookies... tickets off the street? Can we really scalp tickets in Latin America? ok ok... calm down. Lets check how much money we have to potentially throw away.

MMMN ok, should we, should we not... lets do it. Lets buy the tickets from scrubby dude!

In anticipation of expensive crap food inside the stadium, we ate quickly a pizza and empanadas with cokes (no beer on game day) and queued up outside with the Boca fans. Marcel put on his newly bought Boca shirt and guess what?

We got inside! Our scalped tickets worked!!

As for the game.. I will let Marcel write that story. For me, it was the best futbol match I have seen. Aggressive, Loud, Fireworks, Hot Stinky People and lots of Passion. Vamos Boca! (of course they won, 3-1)

By the way, we payed the Gringo price of $AR 140 each (original price $AR 24) and loved every second of it.

xxx

Vanessa