La Boca

Being a tourist, I figure that I can get away with doing touristy things so yesterday I walked out to the La Boca area of Buenos Aires.  There's a tiny part of the area that is painted in bright colours.  It's now a total tourist trap with coaches disgorging their loads of tourists with cameras on every street and local touts trying to persuade you to come in for lunch, have a photo taken with a real tango dancer, or buy a painting from a local artist.  I wandered about snapping pics here and there and then retreated to a little square across the street from the area to sit and watch the frenzy.  I wish I had gone earlier in the morning when there would be less people about but I hadn't realised that it would take so long to walk there (something which tourists don't do, all the guidebooks advise against going anywhere in the area outside of the painted streets but I don't have a guidebook and the worst thing I encountered was locals trying to chat me up).  The area was created in the 1950's by an orphan who had been raised in the area and who felt he wanted to give something back.  The idea is based on the history of the area.  La Boca is a port and when immigrants to Buenos Aires came pouring in during the late 1800s and early 1900s many of the Italian immigrants set up their homes in the area.  Scavenged materials from the port were used to construct their houses and the leftover paint from the port was used to paint the outside of these houses, hence the vast amount of paint colours used.  Inventive, colourful and fun!