CIRCLE THE WAGONS

Off we go to watch Boca Juniors play at the famous “chocolate box” ground in Buenos Aires, known locally as La Bombonera.

Tour guides are quick to play up the danger of watching football at the ground and go to some lengths to describe the surrounding area as bandit country. While it’s probably fair to say La Boca isn’t the most pristine neighbourhood on the South American continent it’s hard to imagine it being more dangerous than just about anywhere in Rio. That’s not an impression willingly fostered by the companies that charge a truly stunning premium to take tourists to watch Maradona’s old club play the beautiful game.

My good friend Joe Wallace of www.theroastdinner.blogspot.com fame is certainly of the opinion that the whole set up is a scam, having visited the ground under his own steam last year. He would, no doubt, have upbraided me for having more money than sense for forking over the equivalent of a month’s worth of street food to get to the game, emphasising his point with a disappointed shake of his freakishly oversized head.

Unfortunately, his analysis would be spot on. Certainly the premium was not reflective of the quality of the service provided.

The bus taking us to the ground was late but that didn’t really matter because the match didn’t start until four hours after the advertised time anyway. Fortunately for us, the guides had just the remedy for unexpected downtime and took us straight to a back-street bar and grill where we were invited to enjoy the reasonably priced cold beer and BBQ meats. Not much in the mood for either, Alan and I decided to take some time out to explore the neighbourhood only to be told pretty promptly that it wasn’t safe for us.

This seemed entirely unlikely but as we didn’t know where we were or what time the group was heading to the ground we decided to stick around and wait it out. Two hours later, following the departure of 90% of the tour group to the ground, Alan, myself, and a small band of increasingly worried football fans were left waiting outside the bar while our guide paced the sidewalk talking urgently into his mobile phone. Things were not going according to plan. Whether it was a failure to secure tickets for us or just transport to the ground wasn’t made clear until nearly 45 minutes later when, our clearly flustered leader, announced that we would be walking the seven blocks to the ground. Evidently the mean streets of La Boca could be made to respect honest pilgrims after all. Convenient.

Clearly operating under the doctrine of what Alan says the Army calls ‘raincoats on, raincoats off’, on reaching the ground we were again asked to wait for the arrival of what, I can only assume, where hastily arranged panic-tickets. I say this because instead of receiving a formally issued conventional paper ticket, each tourist was given the ground pass of an absent Boca Junior season ticket holder. I had the good fortune of going to the football as Ruis Sergio Martin and can I just say that it enhanced the experience enormously. There’s nothing like being a true believer.

In the end the match turned out to be less eventful than the journey to the ground, ending in a nil-all draw, but that didn’t stop the local fans behaving as if they’d just won the league. The singing and dancing was unrelenting throughout the game, with the action on the pitch having absolutely no impact whatsoever on the volume or fervour of the tunes.

Despite the paucity of on-field action the tension, the drama, the buzz and the atmosphere were clearly too much for our tour guide who, at half time, was spotted smoking a king-sized joint up the back of the stands. Well I guess you need something to bring you back down after leading 15 strangers through Apache country.

Great day, great experience, useless tour.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson