Welcome to La Boca
With its brightly painted houses and open air art, the southern immigrant neighborhood of La Boca is both enchanting and irritating. How much you enjoy yourself depends on when you go, and how allergic you are to kitsch.
Crazy for Mate
Spend any amount of time in Argentina, and you're going to become familiar with mate, a drink deeply ingrained into the country's psyche. We first encountered it in Spain, when we saw a group of kids passing around a round container with a metal straw sticking out of it. "Argentinians", our Spanish friend explained. "That's all they do. Drink mate".
Tango, Desaparecidos, Maradona
"What do you know about Buenos Aires?" That's the question posed to Barcelonan detective Pepe Carvalho at the beginning of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's excellent crime novel Quinteto de Buenos Aires. Carvahlo's response mirrors what mine would have been: "Tango, desaparecidos, Maradona". I suppose I might have added Evita. Not much else.