Soccer Mafias: Barras Bravas of Buenos Aires

Many times I’ve mentioned that I find soccer, as a spectator sport, an exercise in tedium, best exemplified by the classic Buenos Aires Herald headline “Another Boring 0-0 Tie.” That puts me at odds with my nephews, who keep threatening to take me to a match, but so far I’ve successfully resisted.

I feel differently, though, about soccer as a social and cultural phenomenon. I’ve enjoyed the Museo de la Pasión Boquense, which extolls the virtues of the Boca Juniors franchise, but that’s largely because of the museum’s success in portraying the barrio’s intense attachment to the team. Several times I’ve been in the neighborhood on game days, when blue and gold fashion statements (see the above photograph) reach saturation levels.

That said, I’m not sorry to have avoided the experience of my friend Patrick Symmes who, in last month’s Outside Magazine, waded into the middle of the barras bravas, the most unsavory aspect of Argentine soccer. Their closest English-language counterpart would be Britain’s soccer hooligans, but the barras go far beyond anything ever seen in the UK: in Patrick’s words, “What Argentina really excels at is not so much the play of soccer as the bloodsucking financial exploitation and mob atmosphere that accompanies it.”

The worst of the bunch is probably Boca’s “La Doce,” roughly translatable as the “twelfth man” in the stands. They intimidate other fans, players, the police and even management – controlling concessions and parking around La Bombonera (the team’s “Chocolate Box” stadium whose murals, one of which is pictured above, depict its fans and other neighborhood sights).

Sometimes, rival factions of barras of the same team will assault each other, and they have even resorted to homicide. The insecurity has also affected the quality of play, as the best Argentine athletes often prefer to play in Europe, where they feel more secure.

The barras’ names are often dead giveaways, so to speak. Estudiantes de La Plata’s is known as the Pincharratas (Ratstabbers), while River Plate’s are Los Borrachos del Tablón (Drunkards of the Stands) and Vélez Sarsfield’s is La Pandilla (The Gang). These are not people most of us would invite to dinner and, in Patrick’s article, you can sense the menace that he and his Italian photographer – who spent nearly four years in Afghanistan – endured to get the story. It’s gripping reading, and I’m glad they did it instead of me.

The barras are not exclusive to Argentina. Once, in the Santiago Metro, I found myself surrounded by partisans of Colo Colo, whose Garra Blanca (White Claw) is probably Chile’s highest profile barra. En route to a match at the national stadium, they pogoed so energetically that I briefly feared they might derail the car. Still, while it was rowdy and unpleasant, I never felt personally threatened. It was nowhere remotely close to the organized thuggery that Patrick portrays in Argentine soccer.

App News: Argentina Travel Adventures is an Android!

Until now, my Argentina Travel Adventures app has only been available for the iPhone, iPad Touch, and iPad, as the upper-right advertisement indicates. A few days ago, though, ATA went live for Android-based phone and tablets. At only US$2.99, it’s a bargain for planning for your trip to Buenos Aires and beyond.

In related news, my Chile Travel Adventures app should be released soon for both iTunes and Android.

Tango by the River

As announced recently, there’s been a postponement of my digital slide lecture on Buenos Aires at Tango by the River in Sacramento, which will now take place Friday, October 26th, at 6 p.m. The date’s getting close, though – just a shade over two weeks.

Limited to a maximum of 50 people, the event will also include tango performances; admission costs $10 at the door, or $8 in advance. I have spoken here several times before, and we always sell out, so plan in advance. Signed copies of my Moon Handbooks on Argentina, Buenos Aires, Chile and Patagonia will be available at discount prices.

Humpback Cruising in the Strait of Magellan

In January of 2006, I took a short weekend voyage to the southwestern sector of the Strait of Magellan, on a small motor yacht better suited to the waters of the Río de la Plata (its previous home). Fortunately, for myself and the handful of other passengers aboard, the often choppy Strait was calm that day, and the Punta Arenas company Whalesound got us safely to Isla Carlos III, their base camp for viewing the feeding grounds of the southern humpback (pictured below).

Whalesound stills visits the Parque Marino Francisco Coloane, the marine reserve that surrounds Carlos III, and Expedición Fitzroy has since begun sea-based tours on the M/N Forrest, a totally recycled vessel that once hauled wool around the Falkland Islands. In addition to the humpbacks, which migrate south from Colombia, the park's seas and shorelines are home to breeding populations of Magellanic penguins, cormorants, many other southern seabirds, fur seals, and sea lions. Orcas are also present.

This year, though, there’s a novelty. Cruceros Australis, the luxury “expedition cruise” company that shuttles between Punta Arenas and Ushuaia during the austral summer, is offering four special whale-watching departures this season: one in January, two in February, and one in March. These itineraries, a variant on the regular voyages, sail directly from Punta Arenas to Carlos III and then on to Ushuaia on the Stella Australis (pictured above) and the Via Australis, should offer the chance to see the behemoths of the southern seas up close and personal, in rigid inflatables.

While Whalesound’s domed-tent camp and Fitzroy’s accommodations are comfortable enough (I’ve visited the latter, though I’ve never spent a night aboard), the Stella and the Via are something else again – while relatively small for cruise ships, housing fewer than 150 passengers each, they offer expansive accommodations, gourmet food and fine wines, and plenty of room to roam about and stretch your legs (the Stella even has a gym). That said, the company issues a caveat that “We cannot guarantee the sighting of whales due to their natural habits and constant movement.”

Personally, that wouldn’t deter me from taking the trip. During my own short visit, we saw plenty of whales and, given Cruceros’ professionalism and resources, I would have reasonable confidence in seeing plenty of whales.

Tango by the River

As announced recently, there’s been a postponement of my digital slide lecture on Buenos Aires at Tango by the River in Sacramento, which will now take place Friday, October 26th, at 6 p.m. The date’s getting close, though – just a shade over two weeks.

Limited to a maximum of 50 people, the event will also include tango performances; admission costs $10 at the door, or $8 in advance. I have spoken here several times before, and we always sell out, so plan in advance. Signed copies of my Moon Handbooks on Argentina, Buenos Aires, Chile and Patagonia will be available at discount prices.

In Argentina and Chile, Early Voting Begins

Four years ago, shortly after Cristina Fernández first won election to the presidency of Argentina, Buenos Aires was still the site of election frenzy, as both Spanish and Italian politicians plastered walls, buses and utility boxes with posters for their European campaigns. Many Argentines have dual nationality in those countries, and are eligible to vote in their elections, and Italian dual nationals even have their own representative in Italy’s parliament.

None of those countries is in campaign mode this year, but the US presidential election is drawing attention all over the world, and the Southern Cone countries are no exception. You won’t see the same conspicuous campaigning that you would if European countries were involved but, according to the Buenos Aires Herald, 25,000 US citizens residing in Argentina are eligible to cast absentee ballots. US Ambassador Vilma Martínez, whose official residence in Palermo appears in the above photograph, hosted a special event for the first day of absentee voting. Seven hundred voters cast their ballots.

Across the Andes, in Chile, things are proceeding in a similar manner. As in Argentina, US citizens can cast their ballots in person, or mail them to Santiago’s US embassy, which will forward them north for no additional charge. I don’t know how many US citizens reside in Chile, but one estimate says about 10,000.

Information on voting absentee while overseas is available through the Federal Voting Assistance Program. Interestingly, resident foreigners can vote in Chilean elections, and Argentina is considering legislation to let them do so.

Campaign Update: Dateline Romney Nui

In related news, the New Yorker has posted the winner of the moai-themed cartoon caption contest that appeared in the magazine a few weeks ago, about which I posted my own entry. Given that all the captions were clever, I can’t complain about the winner, but my own personal preference came in third.

Tango by the River

As announced, there’s been a postponement of my digital slide lecture on Buenos Aires at Tango by the River in Sacramento, which will now take place Friday, October 26th, at 6 p.m.

Limited to a maximum of 50 people, the event will also include tango performances; admission costs $10 at the door, or $8 in advance. I have spoken here several times before, and we always sell out, so plan in advance. Signed copies of my Moon Handbooks on Argentina, Buenos Aires, Chile and Patagonia will be available at discount prices.

At the Movies: Southern Cone Cinema Update

In 1986-7, spending a year-plus in the Falkland Islands on a Fulbright-Hays fellowship, my wife and I had a chance to visit the island of South Georgia on the RFA Sir Bedivere, a British supply ship that reprovisioned the British Antarctic Survey post there. The nine-day trip would have cost us about US$400 each, which sounds like a bargain now, but it would have meant four days in rough seas in each direction and only one day there, with no guarantee of going ashore – that depended on conditions on arrival.

On a student budget, it seemed a lot of money at the time, but today we regret not having done it. That’s especially so when I think of the way British explorer Ernest Shackleton traveled to South Georgia, rowing a small covered boat from Antarctica’s Elephant Island (pictured above in a NOAA photograph), in the dead of winter in 1914. That’s a true-life adventure that, as its centennial approaches, is due to appear on the big screen as Ice, under the auspices of Hollywood producer Bob Chartoff.

After his expedition vessel Endurance sank in pack ice, Shackleton and several crew members crossed several hundred miles of the stormy South Atlantic in the small open boat James Caird (the photograph  above is by expedition photographer Frank Hurley), arriving at South Georgia two weeks later. Even then, the adventure was not over, as they had to traverse the mountainous, glacier-covered island to reach a Norwegian whaling station of the north side. Shackleton’s adventure has already been the subject of a documentary, director George Butler’s The Endurance, which is well worth seeing, but I also look forward to the fictional version. I would be curious to learn how much of the film might be shot on location.

Pictured above, the Sir Bedivere, for what it’s worth, no longer serves the South Georgia route. In 2009, the Royal Navy sold it to Brazil.

Oscar Update: Best Foreign Film?

In other cinematic news, Argentina and Chile have chosen their candidates for the next Academy Awards.  Argentina’s submission will be director Benjamín Ávila’s Infancia Clandestina (Clandestine Childhood), the tale of a boy raised by Montoneros guerrilla parents during the “Dirty War” of 1976-83. While fictional, it is partly autobiographical, as Ávila’s mother herself was a victim of Argentina’s military dictatorship.

The Chilean entry is director Pablo Larraín’s No, a tale of the referendum on Augusto Pinochet’s continuation as the country’s de facto president in 1988, which the general famously lost and, reluctantly, finally acknowledged to pave the way for a return to democracy the following year. No (the image above is the campaign flag) will have at least one big name: Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, who played the role of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Walter Salles’ award-winning The Motorcycle Diaries, will have to adopt a Chilean accent to play the role of René Saavedra, an exiled PR man who returns to help lead the anti-Pinochet campaign. Recently, No won an award at Cannes.

In peripherally related news, our nephew José Massolo informs us that his modest apartment in Buenos Aires’s downtown Congreso neighborhood (where we ourselves lived for occasional periods before acquiring our own apartment in Palermo) will be used as a location for director Natalia Smirnoff’s upcoming film El Cerrajero (The Locksmith). Clearing out for a weekend, José should earn enough from the rental to buy a new MacBook that will help him in his graphic design studies.

Tango by the River

As announced recently, there’s been a postponement of my digital slide lecture on Buenos Aires at Tango by the River in Sacramento, which will now take place Friday, October 26th, at 6 p.m.

Limited to a maximum of 50 people, the event will also include tango performances; admission costs $10 at the door, or $8 in advance. I have spoken here several times before, and we always sell out, so plan in advance. Signed copies of my Moon Handbooks on Argentina, Buenos Aires, Chile and Patagonia will be available at discount prices.