Burning Man in La Boca - La Noche de San Juan

Around Latin and South America every year on the 24th June



This festival has different roots and days of observance. Originally, the lith pagan solstice festival (June 21 for the Northern Hemisphere or 21st December for the rest of the Southern Hemisphere), however here in Argentina and specifically Buenos Aires, they still consider themselves European and hence celebrate a similar festival called the  La Noche San Juan which is celebrated on the 24th June, after a Spanish legend, Leyenda de la Encantada. Your Kiwi in Buenos Aires is now living in La Boca so for the second year in a row I have been able to enjoy this night time street party.

the idea is to write down yours hopes, dreams and desires onto a piece of paper and place it upon the effigy of San Juan,later that evening it is set alight and the burning effigy sends your hopes into the universe eventually become realised. Nice huh? Probably this originated as a means to maintain the pagan observance of the ciclic seasonal changes whilst connecting them to Christianity which was trending hard at the time thanks to the joining of church and monarchy.  A bit pagan but hey, these days our 'dieties' that we pay tribute to aren't much better in their sentiments.

I wanted to post these two photos above, taken from 2015 festival in La Boca because as you can see it was quite a sight. In fact the effigy burnt so well everyone wondered if it would spread to building nearby, but as always in La Boca, the bomberos are always ready to hit the streets and fight the good fight against el fuego. This year, the spectacular was impressive up to a point, with a huge crane transporting the conductor of the now famous La Bomba de Tiempo onto the stage, and then hoisting the visually spectacular troupe from Fuerza Bruta to dance above our heads, miming the story of the first European immigrants arriving to the port to the hammered rythms of a dozen drummers. The gas-fed effigy looked sad from the get-go and when the hopes and dreams of the local school children failed to burn the crowds shuffled off muttering the likes of how even a centuries old festival had too become "Macrifried" or "The effigy is the only thing not in the oven these days"
  

A quick note on the firefighters, who for a long time the firefighters in La Boca were the only authoritive type figures that would dare venture into the neighbourhood. Police wouldn't, unless under duress and it was even more, as we say here 'complicated', than it is even today. I heard recently of a visitor who ventured beyond the invisible line which is El Caminito and recieved a pistol butt to the head, so heed the advice of your guides or friends here and be a smart traveller. I rode through the port frontage recently and felt inclined to be guided by an invisible hand around a few blocks leading to the river. I checked the area by map later that day and saw it was the infamous Barrio Chino. This Barrio I have walked through before, against the advice of the naval prefectura (port police), however I was with a friend and we were still just outside the line, checking out the graffiti so we felt it was worth the measured risk.