It's pretty hard to tell you how sick this is. Argentines can't become members of the club (and thus get season tickets). Foreigners, however? We pay $60 and we're in. It's not the easiest process to figure out, but once you do it's pretty simple to accomplish. In fact, I'm taking a friend to the stadium tomorrow to become a socio.
The atmosphere is intense. The only thing I can compare it to was the franchise opening Texans game in September 02.
This is one side of the La Bombonera (literally "the chocolate box" because it is shaped rather interesting inside. Not sure any of my pictures capture how, so I'll try to do better in the future). Painted in all bright yellow and bright blue.
Outside, basically from the same vantage point as the previous picture but different direction. We ate at the restaurant on the right. Had a pretty quality lomito (steak sandwich) for $5. Ship that.
I was pretty fascinated by the those little tunnels. Basically, it's a tube of plastic with a massive fan on one side. Then the visiting team went into one of them, and the refs went into another during halftime. I actually think this picture may have been pregame.
This is above the doce. The doce is the area where Portenos tell me foreigners might be less than safe. Of course, I plan to go to the doce imminently, though it's not exactly obvious to me how I get there. It's not a language problem, I can understand most things written in the streets (except the graffiti). Rather, it's just that everyone knows exactly where to go, and I don't. And man, it's like mayhem before a game trying to get in. There's cops everywhere, people mobbing people close to gametime, and it can be rather intimidating.
YO SOY DE BOCA!
If this was a better picture, you'd have a better idea of the fact that this is pregame and the crowd is going fricking nuts.
This is the opposing team Velez coming out of the plastic wind-powered tube.
Cheerleaders. Note the girl in front of the chearleaders. She has this pretty crazy outfit. I don't really understand their function
For this game, I was with a Dutch guy who has been to games all over Europe. From the moment we walked in he said, "wow, this is the greatest atmosphere to see a game I've ever been in."
It only got better. La Pasion! La Emocion! There's a saying that the stadium doesn't tremble, it beats. When the crowd gets excited, the stadium moves. Yeah, it moves. It's like being on a trampoline almost...you are jumping and yelling and the ground isn't exactly where your brain is expecting it to be. Frankly, this one experience would have been worth the $60 right there. Vale la pena! I can't really describe it, but it's awesome. You have 60k people jumping up and down in unison, singing songs (I'm a big fan of "Yo soy de Boca"). Phenomenal. Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.
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