I have never asked for seats in the barbed wire cage section before. In fact, I didn´t know that´s what I was ordering when I dragged my friend Robbie to the soccer match in Buenos Aires last weekend.
The last thing on my South American to-do list was see a soccer game live. I´d tried in Colombia and Peru, but it never worked out. It was either too dangerous to go alone or too far away.
The only ´sporting event´ I´d found until now was a cholita wrestling match in La Paz, where grown women and men dressed up in spandex diapers and proceeded to knock each other around the ring, against concrete walls and with metal chairs, to the delight of expletive-screaming Bolivians. And their children. At least I learned some new vocabulary from a 12-year-old... isn´t socially-accepted violence great?
So when Robbie arrived, a Londoner more preoccupied with the design and color scheme of the uniforms than any actual sport, I thought ´Oh, Robbie´s European, he must like soccer! A real sport. This is my last chance... this is going to be the best soccer match EVER!!´
Sometimes people find my unwarranted optimism endearing. Robbie does not, which is partly why I love him. But, humoring me, we made our way up the concrete steps to the top of River Plate stadium, one section away from the opposing team´s fans, chanting merrilly along with the drumline and waving their black and yellow banners.
´I like River´s red sashes,´ observed Robbie, bored. ´They look like beauty queens. Little beauty queens running around with bumblebees... geez, where can I get a beer?´
The ´nosebleed section´ is a double-entendre in Buenos Aires. We entered a section rimmed with a tall chicken-wire fence encircled in barbed wire. It was the kind of security measures you see on the outside of prisons (but not in Bolivia!). And they don´t sell beer there.
Police officers stood at the exit and watched the game with their batons at the ready. River Plate fans had their red and white flags out and peole were chanting and jumping around with lots of drums and not enough cowbell. It was as I had imagined: lots of singing, some fireworks and pretty good soccer.
The game started and ended uneventfully. Halftime was a bit of a snore - intermission entertainment has yet to catch on, but I see opportunities galore for marching bands and kiddie slam dunk contests in South America - and the worst part was there was no garlic fries, milkshakes or vendors tossing peanuts in the stadium. Only questionable-looking hamburgers.
We weren´t even in the ´Los Borrachos del Tablon´ section (the Terrace Drunks), but there was good reason we stood for an hour post-match waiting to leave: they were letting the Olimpio fans out first. Not only were we waiting for them to exit the stadium, but exit the actual neighborhood should a mass exodus of beauty queens go all cholita in the streets.
Alas, the only inappropriateness came in the form of four lascivious teenagers who jumped on the chicken wire and thrust their pelvises in the general bumblebee direction with accompanying crude hand motions.
It wasn´t classy, but it was classically South American.
