There are few remaining places where, as a tourist, you stick out so shockingly from the local crowd that you are forced to feel mortified at your own existence on this planet. But there places where, upon visiting you realise, perhaps for the first time, that with the backpack you’re carrying, the jeans and jacket you’ve been wearing for four days, the camera that’s slung over your shoulder and that bright, funny hat you bought from the market, you just don’t fit in.
If you ever visit Buenos Aires and find yourself journeying into La Bombanera Stadium, home of the mighty Boca Juniors (think Maradona) then I would say that you too will be forced to come to this realization. And it’s not a particularly comforting one. I’m going to try my best to recount what little memories I have – amidst the haze of deafening roars, smoke, swarms of entranced zombies and at least fifty-thousand musical instruments – of the journey into and, by some miracle, out of La Bombanera.
For any football fan, the prospect of a seeing a Boca game at their fortress of a home ground is enough to send shivers down their spine. I’m not really a die-hard, but on my last visit to BA, I found out that they were playing and thought it would be a jolly idea to venture along and catch a squiz of the action. Travelling with my dad, we asked the concierge at the hotel how we could get tickets. He kindly informed us that the hotel offered a wonderful package with ‘best seats’ and a guide for a modest US$150. I nearly burst out laughing. I now realise that $10 is for the ticket and the rest is for the ‘guide’, who is actually a body guard employed with the task of ensuring your survival within the bounds of the stadium. Not an easy task by any means, but I’ll elaborate on that later.
After petulantly dismissing the hotel’s package, we set out on a mission that a few locals had told us was not a good idea at all: to obtain our tickets at the stadium. We found out that all tickets were in fact season tickets, as no Boca fan would ever so much as dare to miss a game. The only tickets available to tourists were the ones to the joyful value of $150. But, we were adamant that we were street-wise enough to somehow smuggle ourselves into the stadium. And there is no better place to test your street-wisdom than in the realms of La Boca.
Task 1: Getting our tickets
We decided to arrive at the stadium at least three hours before the start of the game, to maximize our chances of success. After catching a few death stares not long after exiting the bus, I realised that we wouldn’t be slipping into the stadium, for obvious reasons that have already been alluded to. “They’re all looking at us,” said my Dad. “I know,” I said, “it’s probably because you’re wearing a toddler’s sized Boca beanie and your jersey says ‘I love Ecuador’. You’re not a very convincing fan.”
We began whispering to each other from this point, in the hope that it would help us to slink into the shadows, but we did manage to talk tactics. We canned the idea that our Boca merchandise would do the trick. We had bought ourselves enough time, so I suggested that we remain on the sly and observe the goings on in the streets around the stadium. There really were no ticket booths in operation. But there were clusters of suspicious-looking characters on street corners shouting things at us in Spanish. I thought it was merely the standard anti-tourist discourse. I soon realised that the shouting got softer the closer we came to the stadium’s security guards, who are actually an anti-riot army of carnivorous Argentinian monsters. It struck me then that ticket-touting was alive and well here and that we were in with a chance.
It was like throwing crumbed bread into a tropical fish tank. As soon as they got the signal, they were all onto us in a second, maybe less. They all offered the same price, 200 pesos, and were all equally as convincing in their sales talk. We didn’t rush our purchase. We tried to bargain them down but it was clear that they were all members of the same touting syndicate. We visited an official Boca supporters club to get some opinions and ended up getting a look at the Boca fan girls, who were getting themselves ready for the occassion. We stayed. It was difficult to get a word in as there were hundreds of fans streaming into the club, apparently all for the purpose of greeting every other fan that was already inside, exponentially increasing our chances of getting involved in a mass hug. A few of the members we did manage to speak to told us that the club was a ‘political organisation’ and was unable to deal with the concerns of tourists.
We strolled closer to the gates of the stadium and came to find that here, the security army was not as concerned with ticket-touting as they were with keeping the swarms of chanting Boca fans under check. We cut our losses and bought tickets from a touter right under their noses, and were fully prepared for arrest should the tickets prove to be fake. I think we even said a prayer there and then to plead forgiveness on our honest tourist souls. But that didn’t stop us from feeling pretty elated when were we let in…
Task 2: Finding our seats
The journey into the stadium was eventful. We had our food which we (honestly) forgot in our day pack confiscated, an instant knock to the pride we’d felt after getting past security depot #1. It was only about at #6 that we were granted access. The tunnel going to the upper-reaches smelled of urine and more urine, and we witnessed the public urination more than once on our way up.
Coming around the last corner of the tunnel before reaching the top tier, I had this sense that we were completely unprepared for what we were about to witness. I could only think at the time that gladitorial combat was still alive here in Argentina and that the entire country must have pitched up to witness this particular battle. The crowd’s roars certainly suggested it, and the vibrations pulsating through the stadium’s pillars was further evidence to fuel my gut-feeling.
When we finally turned that corner, we were instantly shoved into a mass of singing, dancing, screaming, jumping Boca fans. We had joined the crowd of fish waiting to be netted, shredded and canned. We were the only ones aware of this danger, the rest of the crowd continued with incessant and deafening chanting. And the band! The band! At least fifty bass drums all on the same beat, sent a shock straight to the heart. Not to mention the hundreds of snares and symbols being beaten wildly, breaking the defenses of sanity and sending our heads head spinning.
The only thing on our minds at this stage was to find a place to sit and breathe. Unfortunately neither of these things happened. Hundreds of people were standing on the railings, stringing huge Boca flags down and across the entire length and breadth of this section of the stadium. All the seating was now covered. The only way that any one could see anything was for them to stand on the railings, hang on to a flag, and jump and sing, and jump and sing…
We weren’t about to do that, but we did do a lot of jumping and singing. I have honestly never experienced such a thrill at seeing 60 000 people all jumping at the same time, it’s completely mesmerising. Even if it is slightly less than comforting that the concrete is moving under your feet, the band, the flares, the singing, jumping and chanting, it’s all so overwhelming that you have no choice but to surrender to the euphoria of the occasion. And of course now, you feel slightly less like a tourist…
We hardly saw any of the game. There were some goals scored which we didn’t see, but we realized that watching the game is not as important to these fans as turning up to show their support. I don’t think there are any fans in the world more dedicated to supporting their team in voice. The music, chanting and cheering were so loud and purposefully incessant that they rang in my head for days afterwards. All my talk of anti-tourism here really is not true. It just feels like that at first, it’s a daunting environment if you’ve never experienced anything like it before. The reality is that we were treated with great warmth, especially when we began to voice ourselves for the boys in blue and yellow.
If you ever find yourself in BA, go along to a game, throw all your touristy caution to the wind and go and experience a football spectacle like none other in the world.
Tips:
- If you buy a ticket from a touter, you can test if it’s real by trying to make a tear in it. If it tears easily, it’s fake. If it doesn’t you’re set. The cost value of the ticket is likely to be 40 pesos, but be prepared to pay anywhere from 150-300 pesos for a touted one.
- If you want to take a camera or any other valuables, make sure to take a bag that you carry around your chest. Zip your jacket up over the bag. This way, if you want to get your stuff out you can keep it close to you and put it away quickly. Also, no one will take stuff from under your nose. This is advice straight from one of the ten-thousand security guards at the stadium.
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