Montevideo - Puta madre

Montevideo (Uruguay)
23-24 August 2012

'Don't bother with churches, government buildings or city squares, if you want to get to know a culture then spend a night in its bars'. II have a feeling that Mr Hemingway might have been clued in to a thing or two, even if his words were infused by fifteen or so daiquiri's  from his old haunt of el Floridita, you've always got to follow the advice of the man! Along this same line of thought, I also believe that if you can tap into the food that makes a country unique or somehow find your way to those national culinary representatives, then it will be in that meal where you can get a sense of what makes a place and what it's about, for example, Brasil has their fejoida (a stew of black beans and salted pork, which is hearty and utilises cheap and easy to find ingredients), Argentina has its steak and Malbec (no gueses as to what their leading exports are), and Uruguay, well it has the chivito! That almighty, all hedonistic, all carnivore inspired sandwich that is meant to break the hearts and minds of even the most ardent of 'meativores', it is the iconic serve of the Uruguayans and a fabled treasure that I had attempted to hunt down on a previous turn through this hood but didn't quite meet the mark. Now it was time to go back!

Welcome to Uruguay - Chivitos on hand!

Like all good stories my visit to Montevideo on this occasion has a precedent which is none to ospectacular, indeed, this city and I have an inglorious history and my return was either going to allow Montevideo to do a little soul searching and make it up to me, or, it was going to spell out in no uncertain terms exactly what it thought of me after my premature exit a couple of years earlier.

Travelition! Ever heard of that? No neither had I until the Sydney Morning Herald invented a word for the rituals and superstitions that travelers adhere to when they leave the shores of terra australis. I have to say that I don't fall into the overly travelitious category. I mean my only real routine or ritual is that when I fly I wear a blazer because that's just the way I roll, but that's not a superstition. I do however like to follow my intuition and learn from prior experience, for example, my last escapade here, written up in this entry Montevideo - a city on standby, highlights the abysmal way in which the town treated me/us on the eve of its Columbus day festivities. Inuitively you would think that the black mark I'd mentally assigned Montevideo would have prevented me from taking the 3hr ferry ride from Buenos Aires to the Uruguayan capital, right? But alas, I'm stubborn, my search for the infamous chivito had not been satisfied, nor had my quest to make it to the Mercado del Puerto, a place that must be the beating heart of all things meat related in the universe! A place so meat centric that Anthony Bourdain was quoted as saying that '..this place made Argentina look like they're a bunch of vegetarians!'

 Heading out of Buenos Aires, on my way to Montevideo - Uruguay

Somewhere on the Rio de la Plata - Argentina/Uruguay

What else was I meant to do? The meat, it was just....waiting for me, I had to go and see, you know!? I mean, it was going to all be ok, wasn't it? The city couldn't kick me in the teeth again now, could it?

I left Buenos Aires on a gloriously sunbathed morning, the sun rising over the docks, paving the way for a smooth, crystal clear run over the Rio de la Plata, the glass like conditions  on that morning providing the perfect foil to any misgivings or apprehensions that I harboured for rolling the dice against my intuition.

I arrived in Montevideo 3hrs later, on an uncharacteristically warm Winters day, 24 degrees or so, the sun absolutely beaming down ...'Montevideo, you were already drawing me into your evil web of lies and deceit but I didn't know it, I didn't recognise the perverse trap that you had constructed for me, you evil, evil seductress'....Still, as I swiftly bypassed customs and exited the Buquebus terminal, walking out into the rarefied air of a Montevidean day I immediately saw the object of my desire, the Mercado del Puerto. Seriously, this place is a hedonistic concentrate of all things meat and wine related. It's as if all the greatest elements of Argentina have been reduced to just the one building and a food fair had been created for just one person, me!

 Buquebus delivery in Montevideo - Uruguay

It was difficult to break the preposterous lure that this place already had on me. I'd been seduced within seconds of arrival by the overwhelming smells of charred meat, the sizzle and spit of beefy muscle as it hits the grills, the relentless seas of all things meat driven, but then, I also needed to drop the bag that I'd lugged across from Buenos Aires at my digs for the afternoon in order to save myself from the unnecessary hassle of having it tag along for what inevitably will be quite a debaucherous afternoon. So I headed up to the hostel, did the quick sign in and then split down to Ciudad Vieja, the old quarter of Montevideo, in order to take a few shots and heighten that inevitable rush that I was going to experience when I returned to the Mercado.

 Montevideo - Uruguay

 Montevideo - Uruguay

 Ciuidad Vieja - Montevideo - Uruguay

  Ciuidad Vieja - Montevideo - Uruguay

Now I can't say that Montevideo is a pretty city, and even though it fronts the Rio de la Plata (the river of silver), its foreshore can at best be said to be 'lacking a little in character', and at worst can be said to be plain ugly. In all honesty it probably hovers in between those two extremes. The old part of town itself, away from the foreshore, is gritty, has character and a bit of an edge, but also felt strangely deserted on the day that I walked through the area. There were parts that were degraded, crumbling, worn and beaten, bringing to my mind images that I'd seen of Havana and reminded me none to subtly of a place that had suddenly jumped to number 1 with a bullet on the Helisher - next in line travel destination.

  Ciuidad Vieja - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Rio de la Plata - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Rio de la Plata - Montevideo - Uruguay

  Rio de la Plata - Montevideo - Uruguay

  Ciuidad Vieja - Montevideo - Uruguay

My time walking around Ciudad Vieja was only the prelude or starter to what would be the main course at the mercado, and when I did make it to the Mercado del Puerto, well, it was ALL ON  kiddies!! For any person that remembers what it was like to go to the Royal Easter show as a child and be enticed by ever single show bag at ever ystall, well, this meat fest was exactly the carnivore equivalent. I was on a meat high as soon as I entered the building and that was just from the enticing smells that surrounded me,even better were the complimentary drinks being handed out by the vendors, enticing you to take up residence at their particular parilla and asado. So after having walked around for a while and acquired a nice buzz from the kindly vendors and their complimentary alcoholic beverages, I sidled up to a  nondescript stall and commenced my afternoon stroll down the yellow brick road to Oz. The best meat, wine and cocktails all within arms length, what more needs to be said other than the fact that somewhere close to 4hrs slipped on by in what felt like an instant.

 Entrance to the Mercado del Puerto - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Meat fiesta time!!! Mercado del Puerto - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Bring it!!!! Mercado del Puerto -  Montevideo - Uruguay

 A Chivito - not the meat extravaganza that I had anticipated, Mercado del Puerto -  Montevideo - Uruguay

YouTube video from the Mercado del Puerto - Montevideo - Uruguay 

Somehow I managed to make my way back to the hostel for a late afternoon siesta. At that point in time I had every intention of heading out for the evening, that was at 5:30pm. The next thing I knew it was 8:00am the next morning - Montevideo you sly fox, you had trumped me and now you were going to bend me over for your own disturbing pleasure and self satisfaction.

24 August 2012

There are days when you somehow know that your subconscious has triggered the paranoia button and no matter how you try to dismiss what will become the inevitable, you know, you can just feel that the stylings of the day will not be controlled by you and that the full price to be paid is  exactly the full value of apprehension that you're currently trying to mentally negate. This was to be this day, my second day in Montevideo! I mean the bad ass nature of the town crept up on me, without haste, inching itself forward and then with a quick crack of its whip it bit into my flesh leaving a deep and bloodied cut on my back. As I wrote in several postcards to my friends back home, 'Montevideo sucks balls, in fact, if there was a city named 'Sucks Balls' it would not suck as much as you suck, why? Because you SUCK BALLS!'.

As innocuous a sign as you could receive, the world of Montevideo spoke to me  quite clearly that morning. I was having a little dulche de leche on some bread with a few cups of coffee when I decided to strike up a conversation with a fellow traveller. The guy introduced himself as Juan, he was from Buenos Aires, and in actual fact it just some happened that he would be travelling to Australia in the next few weeks, but that's neither here nor there when it comes to the telling of this story, it was just the run in to the 'hint' of a problem that I felt intuitively. In our conversation Juan asked me if I was going to be staying that night, I replied that I wasn't, that I was booked to leave back for BA that evening. He said to me that it was a shame as THIS night in Montevideo was their biggest party night of the year, it's called Noche de la nostalgia (Night of nostalgia), and EVERYONE gets out onto the streets for one mad Uruguayan fiesta....'Bro', he said, 'You just have to check it out'!

'Puta madre!!!!!!!'

Of course this was their biggest party night, last time I was here it was the eve of Columbus Day and now, on the eve of their biggest night of the year I was splitting back to BA. Juan and I chatted for a little while longer and then I headed out into the early morning for a litte post card reconnaissance, souvenir hunting and card writing.

...And then the rain! There it was again, and now the return of that that familiar sense of foreboding, that chill and sense of the inevitable, it was in the air. I negated a few drops of rain in search of a cheap paragua, acquired the 'best looking' post cards of Montevideo that I could find (which are pretty freakin' ordinary, let me just say), committed to memory that a correo (post office) was nearby and sat across the road from the Plaza Independencia to write my cards out.

 Plaza Independencia on a dark, rainy day, thank you Montevideo, thank you for sucking balls that much!!

I'm sure that it was in that exact place, the very spot that I had chosen where all the rotten, downtrodden spirits that haunt this capital, collectively assembled and decided unanimously for this day that they would punish me so hard that I would mentally banish myself from this city forever, and to be fair, even though Montevideo had offered me a great time the day before the cards home were literally carrying the message that this place sucked balls, so perhaps I brought this strike of vengeance on myself.

'Puta madre!!!!!!!'

...And so the city attack commenced

I started with my search for a post office. The building that I had mentally committed to memory was no longer where I imagined it to be so I headed down to Ciudad Vieja to locate the other one that I remembered, of course it was closed....of course it was. At this moment both the rain and wind picked up buffeting my crappy paragua from pillar to post, I mean the only thing the umbrella was really doing was keep the rain off my hair.

So I walked, and walked, all the way up the main drag of Avenida 18 de Julio, looking for a post office. I walked and I asked people, many, many people. In the centre of this city there was noone that could accurately point me out to a post office and more oddly, seemed to be telling me that they weren't open on Fridays? Of course they weren't, this was going to be the day when everything died in Montevideo. I must have walked around for 3hrs looking for a post office, with a decrepit umbrella, my stubbornness transitioning into fury, the rain ever persistent and annoying. I finally had the bright spark that a hotel may be of assistance, and they were, 'Sorry, the post offices aren't operational on Friday!' ....'puta de madre'...they did however offer to send the post cards for me, a small win for which I thanked them.

After a brief bout of souvenir shopping I walked back down to the old town, aiming up for another afternoon at the mercado. I headed into a Santander bank and tried to get out a few pesos from their ATM's, but nothing, they weren't accepting my cards...of course not!!...I left and headed for the HSBC that I'd located the previous day but remembered after a few blocks that I'd also left my souvenirs on top of one of the ATM's back at the Santander bank. Like a lunatic I ran back to the bank and thankfully found the bag located exactly where I left it. Whilst I was there I also managed to acquire some pesos out of the only machine that was accepting my card. I took out 500 Uruguayan pesos (equivalet to $24.50 AUD) and headed off - now remember that figure in your head.

Walking the 6-7 blocks to the mercado I entered one of the shops with the intention of getting my old man a 1930 World Cup replica shirt. I took out my wallet, was just about to pay with my credit card and then I saw it, my card was no longer in my wallet!!!! My monetary lifeline to all things travel related had done a Copperfiedl! Where the f**k was it!!!??? My brain did  a quick retrace and isolated the problem, I'd left it back at the Santandar bank!!!!

'PUTA MADRE!!!!!!!"

By this time I'd ditched that good for nothing paragua and raced the several blocks back to the bank  hoping against all hope that my card would by some odd miracle still be there. Of course it wasn't, 'ahhhh fire truck!!!!', I kicked and cursed the dumb arse machine and must have looked like a raving lunatic to the two individuals that caught me mid spaz attack. I knocked on the 'closed doors' of the bank, it was Uruguayan lunch hour now (12-2) and they were closed, OF COURSE they were!!!,  I asked one of the staff if anything had been handed in! It obviously hadn't, and they advised in turn that if my card had been sticking out then 'someone', more than likely 'anyone' would have racked it for their own personal use.

Now before you say 'how dumb are you to have left your card in an ATM!!!??' let me just give you the low down. At an ATM in Oz you put your card in, carry out the necessary transaction and your card is returned BEFORE you receive your cash! In fact you don't get your cash until you've taken your card  out of the machine and a warning sound is given by the machine after a certain amount of time, NOT SO IN SOUTH AMERICA!!! In South America the process is different, and if you're the slightest bit preoccupied or absent minded then you'll get caught out. The process here goes like this, enter card -  undertake transaction - receive money  - get asked if you want to undertake another transaction of which you must answer Yes/No - then receive your card. In my head and under AUSTRALIAN rules once I had the enormous amount of 500 pesos in my hand I had subconsciously thought that my card was already in my wallet and I walked, obviously without receiving my card!!!!!

'PUTA MADRE!!!!!!!"

Now came that strangely familiar task of having to calling home, having to organise a Western Union transfer, having to cancel my cards and having to survive on my $24.50 AUD until I could receive the funds. Aside from the sinking feeling I had from the card loss there was also the realisation that as today was Friday trying to receive a Western Union transfer in a Latin American country on Saturday was going to be a near impossible task. Still, I tried to put that thought aside and believed that Buenos Aires would at least treat me with kindness, as for Montevideo, well it had struck the final blow and I was ready to split now.

I checked out of the hostel and walked up Avenida 18 de Julio, some 3-4kms, with the aim of checking out the Estadio Centenario prior to jumping a bus for Colonia de Sacramento and then catching a ferry back to BA.

 The Estadio Centenario, home of the very first World Cup in 1930 - Montevideo - Uruguay

Estadio Centenario - Montevideo - Uruguay

Estadio Centenario - Montevideo - Uruguay

 Estadio Centenario - Montevideo - Uruguay

For those of you that don't know anything about football then let me tell you that Uruguay hosted the first world cup in 1930 and the final was played in the capital at the Centenario, so for me it was kind of a pilgrimage, and in my state the only thing that could uplift my beaten spirits. It was also the scene of my ONLY WIN for the day! I managed to get into the ground for free by finding an open gate and skillfully negated the 50 peso ($2.45 AUD) entrance fee!!! YEAH, TAKE THAT MONTEVIDEO!!!

An hour or so later I made my way to tres cruces bus station, headed up to Colonia and made the ferry connection to BA. I was thankful to be back but something had changed. It was cold and it was raining in BA and the 430 Uruguayan pesos that I converted back to Argentinian pesos gave me just on 100 Argentinian pesos, which was not a lot. I also had the nasty feeling that the 100 peson would need to get me all the way to Monday, and that in turn would mean that my dream of making it to Iguazu Falls would have died a painful death somewhere on the  Rio de Plata. It would also been the second occasion that my dreams of seeing the falls would be circumvented by some mischievous operation....

.......'puta madre'

 Back in Buenos Aires, cold, raining, just over100 pesos in my pocket - Welcome back Henry!

Buenos Aires - Football and the city

Buenos Aires (Argentina)

21-22 August 2012

There's an entertaining article that I read recently which aptly, and kind of amusingly taps into the inherent traits of certain cultural groups when they head out into grand beyond on their backpacking escapades. I've included the link to the article if you  feel so inclined to check it out,(10 backpacker stereotypes) .The thing is with stereotypes is that they are what they are for the fact that commonly the truisms regarding characteristics, attributes or idiosyncrasies  assigned to a group to identify actions in a generic, 'vanilla' type of way, do so relatively well. In my mind Australian backpackers are as the article succinctly outlined, friendly, laconic, adventurous knock-abouts that know how to hit it hard on a night out, but what really brought the instructive snippet home to me was the line that said that Australians  '...will often find a relative/friend/acquaintance at every stop'. It's a little surreal as to how closely that line rings true to the reality of 'life on the road'. That certainly appears to be the modus  when you're passing through foreign lands, stepping off a local bus say in the middle of the Bolivian Amazon and suddenly hear a voice that slices through the arcane jungle like a sharpened machete, bringing that  instant feeling of nausea and pounding to your head like an annoyingly familiar Justin Beiber song. As you've probably figured out I had an instance a couple of years ago when I 'thought' I was in the middle of nowhere, stepping of a bus in the Bolivian Amazon, only to hear this;

'Hey mate, howsit goin'?'

It's in those acutely penetrating moments, when you're dumbstruck by the incredulity of the situation,that you feel the fury and rage welling in your being and believe it just might overwhelm you, resulting in justifiable homicide. I'll admit it, and I'll do it out aloud, I hate broad and thick Australian accents, they annoy every fibre of my being! I could find towns full of clones of this man in places like Mt.Isa or Dubbo or Kalgoorlie, but strike me rotten rone if out of all the Amazonian jungle in all of South America this dero didn't have to end up welcoming me to the back of Bourke in his inimitable style, and incidentally, to any of you readers from overseas that didn't understand most of the last two sentences, don't worry yourself, it's not that important. In Estonia ,(of all places), they had a commonly known line that went 'Germans are everywhere and Australians are anywhere!'. Whilst you contemplate that thought keep it circulating in your mind for a while as I'll be referring to it later.

 Avenida 9 de Julio - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Street art - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Avenida de Mayo stop on the Subte - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Streetscape - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Buenos Aires has a heavy European influence and no place represents its feel better than the old world style and charm within walls of the very well known and hometown favourite, Cafe Tortoni. Founded in 1858 this place is the oldest coffee house in the country, noted for the famous clientele it would draw and its equally alluring make up, this place oozes tradition and charm. They say that tourists arriving at Tortoni are able to experience the whole of the city in its defined space, that being with access to the past as displayed on its walls; the present, as it plays out in the conversations that occur around you and the future, in the people that work there for the sake of its posterity and preservation. And you know what? I can see it! I see it in its high ceilings and in the deep, dark smell of the wooden tables and chairs that fill its space,  the scent of which becomes almost tangible, as if the wood has had the chance to soak up the years of history within its fibres and now  was wearing it like a cloak of nobility. I also see it within it's proud and thickly moustached cammereros. I also understand however the fact that Tortoni these days is more kitsch than sophisticated, more emblematic than functional, pandering to the pesos brought in by tourists such as myself who are looking for an 'authentic' experience,but,it's also a place that I imagine would struggle to be replicated in say a place like Sydney. This type of 'old school' can only be earned and that's something that you just can't fake no matter how hard you try!

Cafe Tortoni - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Cafe Tortoni - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 Cafe Tortoni - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Obelisc de Buenos Aires - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 After Tortoni I made my way to the Panamericano, a place that stringently safeguards access to  one of 'the' views of Buenos Aires, keeping its Lvl 23 vista over the famous Avenida 9 de Julio only within the grasp of those staying at the hotel, and of course, yours truly. On this day I took the express shuttle up to 23 and somehow timed my run to the exact moment that the gatekeeper to this wondrous view decided to leave his post. I have a tendency of getting lucky with things like that, but Argentina! Come on man! Embrace the capitalist edifice! Do you know what you could do with a vista like that rather than keeping it as a half arsed bastion of exclusivity!? 

View over Avenida 9 de Julio - Buenos Aires @ speed 

View from the Panamericano - Buenos Aires - Argentina

View from the Panamericano - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 View from the Panamericano - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 View from the Panamericano - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 Avenida 9 de Julio - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Walking up Avenida Sante Fe after my  Panamericano photo shoot I headed through Barrio Norte with the intention of meandering up to Palermo via a few cocktail stops.It was a good 90min walk, my first choice bar of Million somehow being closed and and in the end I fell short of making the full distance jumping the Subte for a ride through last few stations.

Now Palermo is known as the hip and happening BA barrio. Chic, stylish, good looking, good for looking at, it's the equivalent of your Prahran in Melbourne or Double Bay in Sydney, but for the fact that it's in BA and far cooler and much more unpretentious than those places could ever be. If truth be told my real intention for making it to the northern sector of BA was to spend s little time a a place that is considered by many to be one the best parillas in BA, La Cabrera. And indeed that  was where I settled in for a late afternoon morcilla, bife de tire, and the ubiquitous king of Argentinian reds, the glorious Malbec! I mean it's obligatory to do that sort of thing, right!? In those glorious afternoon hours I made sense of how it's been that this place has  developed its reputation, but for me personally, as pleasing as it was I found it to be overpriced and not living up to the character of many of the grill houses in San Telmo.

 Palermo Soho - Buenos Aires - Argentina

 

Parilla La Cabrera - Palermo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Parilla La Cabrera - Palermo - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Post food and wine coma my inane wandering somehow guided me back to Plaza Italia and the Subte, I took a ride via the D line back to the Tribunales stop and walked down to the Panamericano for some evening shots over the city, which didn't eventuate as the fun police stopped my progress at the front gates. I did try to outwit the gatekeeper by posing as a hotel guest, I even had my hotel room number of 2129 ready to roll but I didn't have the surname prepared, Ahh, such a rookie mistake and one that could have been alleviated with a little bit of incisive research.

 ...in a land far, far away

La Bombenera

22 August 2012

So, do you even remember where this blog write up commenced all those paragraphs ago? I was discussing backpacking stereotypes and specifically how Australians seem to pop out off the shrubs anywhere in the world! We have somehow evolved into an easy going crew of professional global nomads. In fact in the most recent UNWTO World Tourism Barometer data (from June 2011) our little country of 22million was ranked # 1 in per capita expenditure on travel with Germany coming in second. This of course lends a little credence to the Estonian saying of Germans being everywhere and Australians being anywhere huh!? So stick with me on this thought for a little while whilst my story catches up with my train of thought in the following paragraphs.

I woke up early in the morning on this day and inherently knew that somehow I was going to find the keys that would block the door to me acquiring tickets to the Boca Juniors v.Independientes match at La Bombenera that evening. I'd like to add now that it was my dogged determination, steely resolve and inane travelers luck that directed those tickets of footballing mayhem into my hands, but alas, it was much more simple than that. With unbelievable simplicity in fact I 'Googled' an agent that was less than 5 mins walk from the hostel and in about the same amount of time I was at their tourist desk  and locked and loaded for the 'Chocolate box' that evening.

 La Bombonera from the outside - La Boca - Buenos Aires - Argentina

Riot squad prior to kick-off

Fast forward to 5:30pm and my return to the same offices for a pick up and transfer to the stadium. Whilst I'm waiting a man walks through the office doors, early twenties or so, dressed in shorts, Boca cap and wind-cheater - 'Aha, this obviously was going to be our guide for the evening'. The lady at the counter introduces the man as such and advises that his name is 'Glenn'.....oh hang on a second, you said what now?Did I just hear her right? It's not Xavier, Juan or Alessandro but 'Glenn? ....Glenn from Buenos Aires huh?'. I sit there for a moment and feel the onset of that overwhelming sense of deja vu, like I've  already lived the inevitable conversation that will happen between us and I know that the wave of disappointment is just about to hit me like the proverbial tsunami

Our group makes its way to the van parked just outside the agency. I'm watching good 'ole Glenn like a hawk, analyzing his idiosyncrasies, waiting for the tell-tale signs of being tied to the Great Southern Land, just a hint of an ockerism will give him away. As I do this Glenn commences his journey down the middle aisle of the van speaking Spanish to the first couple that he meets, albeit with a slight accent. I sit back and force myself to believe that I've judged incorrectly and this kid could be from anywhere....anywhere else....it didn't really matter.

There's a couple sitting in front of me, they're English. This will be the litmus test, this is where my exotic night of footballing mania could potentially unravel. Glenn nods at them in advance of his approach, the English couple fire the first shot over his bow and say 'Hello', and then it comes;

'How are ya's, alright!?'

OH COME ON NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a precision strike, right through the petitioned part of the cerebral cortex that dared to dream this would be some type of authentic experience! I looked skyward but only saw the ceiling of the van, so I looked out onto the traffic riddled streets of Buenos Aires tracing lines back to similar instances in Bolivia, Estonia, Mexico, Laos, virtually anywhere that has land. As I'm running through those golden times in my mind Glenn stops in front of me and says 'Hola, como estas?', I respond in kind but I know the jig is up, 'Muy bien, y tu?',  'Oh, you're English?'.......and the rest of the conversation goes something like this;

'No, I'm Australian actually, from Sydney'

'Oh yeah, me too, I'm from Liverpool'

...of course you are I think to myself....'Yeah, I'm from Blacktown'

'Oh wow'

...yes Glenn, 'Oh wow'

 View over La Boca from La Bombonera - La Boca - Buenos Aires - Argentina

La Bombonera prior to kick-off

Of course I discover Glenn to be a nice guy. His parents are Argentinian and he made the decision to move from Australia back the city of his parents, around three years ago as he wanted to experience the culture and connect with that part of him that isn't Australian. He's also a fanatical Boca supporter and proudly shows off the Boca tattoo that he had inked earlier that day. The conversation goes on for a little while longer and he immediately invites me to his birthday festivities on the upcoming Saturday night ( of course he does, again, it's just what Australians do, it's damn obligatory isn't it?)

Glenn hands out a leaflet providing some facts and figures on Boca Juniors and La Bombonera. I'm surprised to find that the ground, the (Estadio Alberto J.Armando), was designed by Viktor Sulćić, a Yugoslav, or perhaps more correctly, a Slovenian architect that ended up making his home in Buenos Aires (...and I certainly understand why he did that!!)....interesting indeed, but enough of the detail lets  get to the actual game.

The Copa Sudamericana is the second most prestigious tournament in South America after the Copa Libertadores and tonight Boca were playing BA rivals Independientes, although 'they', Boca, consider them to be the outskirt hicks of the capital ,kind of in the same manner that playing Penrith is not really like playing a team from Sydney but rather like playing a bunch of country mutants that somehow crawled down from the mountains and managed yo make their home under the Sydney metropolitan banner.

The stadium itself was an absolute picture, the stands so steeply terraced that from wherever you were sitting or standing it would feel that you were virtually on top of the action. By the time kick-off rolled around at 7:30 the Boca faithful were well and truly in full voice, the ground being filled with the voices and song of supporters from both sides. It was exactly the type of atmosphere that I had always imagined that would exist in the renowned Bombanera cauldron and something that I had always wanted to experience since I was a little kid kicking his ball around in the backyard and scoring imaginary World Cup winners for Australia!

 Terraced seating at the ground

Boca supporters at 'their end' of the ground

Boca supporters in full voice and colour

It was an intriguing game, entertaining, skillful, dynamic and attractive. Not as fast as an English game but you don't expect that from the Argentinian style of play. It tends to be more structured and less physical in an athletic sense, but more brutal and demanding in a 'I'm going to chop your legs with these studs' sense.About 15 mins  into the first half Boca scored  a beautiful, if somewhat opportunistic goal and the crowd just lost their bundle. When the dial gets switched to 'scizo' in a place like this then you don't only experience the emotion in a visual sense but you feel it in your chest! TV just does not do their insanity and passion justice! Rushing to the security fences rom the bottom terraces the faithful jumped on them liked escaped lunatics from a Boca supporters asylum, it was such a sight to see. As the Boca chants started up after the initial jubilant release from the first goal it acted as a trigger to fire up the faithful even more, their  already boisterous voices shaking the ground with their communal song.

 

La  Bombonera - La Boca - Buenos Aires - Argentina

As 'lucky' seems to find me on occasions such as these  I managed to lock myself into what became a pulsating game. Independientes got back into the match with a goal that was well crafted and full of artistry. The away fans lost their minds and the southern end of the ground, filled with Independientes supporters answered all challenges that the Boca crowd threw at them. An insane strike from outside the box right on the of halftime had the score at 2-1 setting the game up for an epic second 45min.

Into the second  half, with Independiente pressing Boca,  the Boca 12th man on the terraces tried to lift the team but somehow through some dynamic movement and build up play Independiente got an equalizer to have the match back on even level terms and set it up for an exhilarating finish.

 
With  20 mins left to go  the referee did himself, or his family for that matter, no favours at all by making a rather bold call and giving a straight red card to a Boca player for a foul sending them off the park and to an early shower. You know i always wondered why players did that? Why the hell would they not sit and watch the rest of the game after being sent off? Why did you need to automatically go and have a shower? Are you cleansing yourself from your footballing sins? If the home team were going to win the match from here then it was going to be with 10 men, a task that seemed like an impossibility considered the nature of the game thus far.

 Panoramic shot from inside the ground

Somehow though, with the home team support Boca rallied and got themselves a free kick from outside the box with just on 10 mins to go on the rocketship clock. Glenn, remember that guy? He was in the process of  having a heart attack along with 30,000 other supporters. Standing high above the ground on the steep terraces, good 'ole Glenn from Fairfield was motionless, watching his beloved Boca fight with a man down, there he stood repeating out aloud, over and over,'please, please,please, please' like a mantra. Now in my head I know that goals from free kicks are rarity but it just felt like it was one of those moments when you kind of knew that the script had called for something magical to happen , and of course, what a strike! A left footed curler that got up and over the wall and beat the keeper on his left side. Boca were mow up 3-2 with under 10 mins to play and the crowd were going MENTAL!!!

3-2 up with 10 mins to play - Boca crowd going nuts!!

With 10 mins left Independiente  pressed with their man advantage, pushing Boca back into their half and forcing them to defend from well within their half! Independiente manufactured  a shot from inside the box that hit the bar and that point you just had the feeling that Boca had somehow done a deal with the football Gods to get this game over the line for this evening,but, the out of town ers kept pushing forward relentlessly and in the 43rd min the elastic band had stretched enough and it finally snapped. Somehow with God on their side Boca had failed to take care of the one person that could really have an impact, and that was the referee.The call that he made guaranteed that he would never have safe passage through La Boca again! A penalty was awarded against the  10 man Boca side with the finish line in sight.

Independientes penalty - video from inside La Bombonera 

Independiente stepped up and comfortably put away the penalty, but then something extraordinary happened, the referee blew  his whistle and called that an Independiente player at entered the box before the strike, asking therefore  that the penalty be retaken (man, now this was footballing theatre at its best, perhaps the referee had received the telegram after all. I was just about to witness a hometown miracle). Standing high about the northern end of the ground I was thinking in my own mind that if the keeper were to go the same way as the initial strike then he would go a long way to getting a glove on it the next kick. Of course the ball did go in that direction but the keeper  with his own rationale went the other way. The score now stood at 3-3 with virtually no time left on the clock...

....and unfortunately for Boca that's how it ended, no fairy tail win this evening but it was one hell of a contest! Wild, electric, passionate, sometimes even verging on the intimidating, it was an unforgettable experience and I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity to get on the Boca carnival ride even if it was only for 90 mins!