Our Great Adventure: Buenos Aires Day 225 01/05/2015

We'd both really enjoyed the walking tour yesterday and decided to join the tour today around La Boca. May 1 is a bank holiday in Argentina, Dia de Trabajador, and all government offices and businesses close. Luckily the bus to La Boca was running and we joined our fellow travellers, walking to the bus stop and then taking a short ride to reach the neighbourhood. La Boca is the working class area of Buenos Aires, situated along the old port and at the boca (mouth) of the Rio Riachuelo. It was built by Italian immigrants from Genoa. The main attraction is the colourful Caminito, a short pedestrian walk lined with corrugated-metal buildings with local artists displaying their paintings. At the end of Caminito is a building with three statues on the balcony, Maradona, Eva Peron and Carlos Gardel a famous tango artist. Across the square from here there's a murial to the 'Madras de la Plaza Mayo' and our guide shared the story of the current search by the grandmothers to find the children of those who had disappeared. Very sadly a number of those who have been identified have since committed suicide, mainly as a fact that in their early 30's they have found out their life to date has been one big lie. The neighbourhood is also home to the Boca Juniors soccer team. The Boca's used to play in a pink strip along with Nottingham de Amagro. They decided only one team should play in pink and in 1906 they played against each other. As Boca lost and had to choose a new strip. The President of the club decide that they would adopt the colours of whichever ship entered the port the next day. The first ship was from Sweden and to this day they have played in their famous blue and yellow kit. The guide decided to extend the tour for the afternoon, returning to San Temlo and on to Montserrat and Puerto Madero. We walked to the local bus depot and after a bit of pontificating (the guide needed to load his electronic card but the cashier office was closed due to the public holiday) and a quick trip to a local shop we boarded a bus heading back to San Temlo. We visited one of the old mansion houses where the elite lived up until c1870 (when they moved to Recoleta where we'd visited yesterday). The mansions were then subdivided and turned into cramped immigrant shelters and this was where tango was invented. Today they house shops, cafes and restaurants amongst other things. From San Temlo we continued to Montserrat and saw the only reference to Che Guevara in the city, a street muriel which includes a number of references to Argentina including a tattoo of Maradona and a tango dance. Despite being Argentinian, Guevara isn't recognised as a national hero as he was from a wealthy family and his revolutionary activity was in Cuba. We continued from Montserrat across what use to be the Rio de la Plata to Puerto Madero, built on reclaimed garbage dumps. The area is lined with pleasant walkways, hotels and apartments and has a very different feel to the rest of Buenos Aires. The docks themselves are bordered with restaurants and bars, one of which we frequented when we were last here but we can't remember which one! The tour finished next to the nature reserve which joins Puerto Madero to the Rio de la Plata. We walked back over the 'Lady Bridge' (apparently it looks like a tango dancer) to the hostel. In the evening we went to a local parrilla near to Plaza Dorrego. Despite the very extensive menu there were only a few choices available. We weren't sure whether this was to do with it being a public holiday or something unrelated. Back at the hostel we packed in anticipation of our early departure tomorrow. Friday night is bbq night at the America del Sur and it looked like we might be in for a noisy evening.