Caminito

Caminito is a curving pedestrian street of a hundred and fifty metres in La Boca, the old port district settled by Genoese immigrants who built houses of corrugated iron and painted them with leftover ship's paint, which is why the block is a patchwork of blue, yellow, red and green. Abandoned when the rail line closed, it was reclaimed in the 1950s by the painter Benito Quinquela Martín, who turned it into an open-air museum of murals, sculpture and colour and gave it the name of a tango. Today it is intensely touristic: tango dancers pose for tips, restaurants have touts, and stalls sell souvenirs, but the colours, the tenement architecture and the nearby Quinquela Martín museum still repay a visit.

History

In the 1800s a small stream running into the Riachuelo followed the line of today's street, crossed by a little bridge that gave the spot the Genoese name Puntin, and when the stream dried up the tracks of the Buenos Aires and Ensenada Port railway were laid along it; disused rails still lie at the end of the street, on Garibaldi. The railway closed in 1954 and the strip became a rubbish dump, until over the following three years the artist Benito Quinquela Martín, who lived nearby, prepared the walls facing it and painted them in pastel colours, putting up a stage at the southern end by 1960, replaced by a nearby theatre in 1972; the name comes from the 1926 tango by his friend Juan de Dios Filiberto (Wikipedia, Caminito).

What to look for

• The painted houses - corrugated iron tenements in patchwork colour.
• The street art - murals, reliefs and sculptures along the walk.
• The tango dancers - performers working the street for tips and photos.
• The Quinquela Martín museum - the painter's collection nearby.

When to go

Year-round in daylight hours, ideally mid-morning before the biggest crowds. The area is best avoided after dark and away from the tourist blocks, which is standard local advice rather than alarmism.

Good to know

Caminito is small, crowded and heavily commercial, and prices in the surrounding restaurants are inflated. Photographs with dancers are expected to be paid for. The wider La Boca neighbourhood requires the usual city-centre caution.

Nearby

La Bombonera stadium is a few blocks away; San Telmo lies north.

Key facts