Balconies in El Caminito.

La Boca's most famous street and 'open-air' museum is a magnet for visitors, who come to see its brightly painted houses and snap photographs of the figures of Juan and Eva Perón, Che Guevara and soccer legend Diego Maradona, who wave down from balconies. (Expect to pay a few pesos to take pictures of tango dancers or pose with props.) Sure, it could be called a tourist trap, but don't let that put you off.

The houses here represent the neighborhood's typical tenement shacks, covered in corrugated zinc and originally brushed with leftover paint that Genoese port workers got from the ships. Caminito (or 'little path') was named after a 1926 tango song, which tells of a love lost. This song inspired Benito Quinquela Martín, La Boca's most famous artist, to help create Caminito in 1955.


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