Buenos Aires Day 4: Recoleta and Futbol game!

¡Hola! On day four, we spent the majority of the day in Recoleta. This is an upscale neighborhood with bits of art everywhere, including colorful specks in the pavement that reminded me of the artsy sidewalks of Adelaide. Although we visited the law school building, the 150-meter-wide flower sculpture (that opens at sunrise and closes at sunset thanks to solar power) and the modern art museum, my favorite stop by far was the Cemeterio de la Recoleta. This is a burial ground for the rich and famous that contains the most expensive property in all of Argentina. And although the inhabitants are dead, this is the place to be seen. I think some might find it creepy to see 12 coffins stacked in one small room, but I found the artwork, sculptures and architecture to be quite beautiful. Shamelessly, I spent over an hour in this maze of crypts, taking some of the best photographs of my ¨career.¨I even visited the grave site of Eva Peron, where she is allegedly buried 9 meters/30 feet underground to prevent her body from being stolen by enemies, as it was in 1955.

My apologies, but you´ll have to rely on my words alone for an account of the soccer match, as I was too afraid to take my camera to the Racing vs. River Plate futbol game (the only image on this post of soccer I took from Google to give you an idea of the intensity of this game). Out of every traveler we had spoken with that had attended a match, all had their camera stolen or were beaten up. So to be on the safe side, I opted to leave my camera behind at the hostel.

Anyway, to start from the beginning, a guy named Guido that works at the hostel and has a dreadlocked mullet is a River Plate fan, and he scored us only moderately (compared to going with the hostel group and getting extremely) costly soccer tickets. So we bussed out to the Racing stadium, 5 blocks out of the main part of Buenos Aires. At first, we couldn´t figure out why he recommended that we leave at 4pm to get there for a 7:30pm game... until we got in the stadium. When we arrived around 7 after a few beers at the local bar, the fans were already there, had strung up long banner flags and were seriously chanting some of their many songs. This was only a small indication of what was to come.

With the arsenal of flags, and intensity on the fans´ faces, you would think they were there to really absorb a good game of soccer. However, the game itself was only a fraction of their reason for coming. The aroma of marijuana and cigarettes hung heavy in the air throughout the entire match. The section we sat in was for the away team (River), and it was about 90% males and 100% standing room only. Once the game started, we thought the drumming and chanting would subside for at least part of the time, but about a quarter of the fans were so focused on the songs alone that they barely turned their heads towards the field. Some fanatics hardly even noticed when River Plate scored each of their three goals in the first half of the first half! There were about 20 chants/songs in total, and some of the lyrics that I understood were about using knives, drinking beers, and scoring the only goals of the game (and two of the three proved accurate among this crowd). Although the away team´s small section behind one of the goals was seperated from the entire 'u' of the away team by two empty sections filled with policemen alone, we opted to leave 15 minutes early to avoid being caught as ¨away team fans¨ leaving the stadium after such a serious pounding. And by the looks of the policemen with batons and shotguns at the gates, I think we made the right decision!