La Boca is probably Buenos Aires' most well known barrio, located in the south-east corner of the city.  It's famous for a few reasons; a very small street called Caminito, home to the Boca Juniors' soccer team, the birth places of Tango and last but not least its dangerous reputation.


Fact is there is no bigger tourist haven/trap in Argentina then Caminto, which is why it's taken us 3 months to get over there.  Caminito and some side streets around it are well known for their cobble stone streets surrounded by brightly colored immigrant housing.  They were originally painted using whatever paint they could find left over at the docks nearby, or so the story goes. Today, the colorful building remain but the area is now filled with restaurants, pairs of tango dancers, and side-by-side souvinoer shops that go on forever.  Sounds fun until you notice you can't walk by a single person without an insistent request to take a photo or sit and buy a drink.  While the sights are more interesting then a Mexican border town market, it's just as off putting. 



Also, it's simply not possible to inform someone of your plans to go to La Boca without receiving some list of precautions in return.  The most general rules; Take a taxi or bus directly to Caminito, don't wander away from the relative safety of the tourist area and take nothing you would later wish you hadn't brought. While we haven't ever been robbed ourselves, our plans to go to a Boca Junior soccer game were recently thwarted by an armed robbery of our roommate back in March.  While he and his workmate were walking around the stadium buying scalped tickets ($30 dollars scalped member tickets as opposed to $100+ tourist tickets), they were robbed by 4 guys pointing guns within shouting distance of a cop. Being the first time our roommate had ever been robbed, he was clearly shaken by losing his wallet, Boca Junior jersey, cell phone and digital camera.