The 10%

3 Americans are visiting Buenos Aires, so the story goes, and only one of them speaks any Spanish (much less Castellano - the local dialect). They want to go to Boca - a working class neighborhood on the waterfront that has a very popular spot for tourists and artists. In the tourist section, the houses are all painted bright colors, there are atisans selling their crafts, boats docked there (some for years or decades), cheap food, art, tango dancers, the whole 9 yards. Outside of the tourist section, it's probably one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city with an incredibly strong sense of barrio. It's also (not coincidentally) the home of the famed soccer team Boca Juniors - one of the most famous soccer teams in the world, and the beloved team of Diego Maradona.

The 3 tourists know they want to go to Boca. The one pseudo-Spanish speaking one knows the street they want to go to is called Caminito - it's a pedestrian street and cabs routinely drop tourists off where the street meets the waterfont.

Interestingly, Caminito is close to a word camineta which in Spanish means t-shirt, but in Argentina means soccer jersey.

The one tourist who knows a little Spanish tells the cab driver that they want to go to Boca - to camineta. So the cab driver hears "I want a Boca soccer jersey." Bueno - he takes the three of them to La Bonbonera - the temple that is the home of the beloved Boca Juniors soccer team. (I write this clenching my teeth because we are de River - their rivals - and Boca plays River this weekend...) Now Caminito is about 5 blocks from La Bonbonera, but is in the heart of the working-class neighborhood. On one side of La Bonbonera lies a huge empty lot, which I believe the club owns because they want to build a bigger stadium but don't have enough space. Coincidentally, when I last went to La Bonbonera, there was a goat in the big empty lot tied up and eating grass. Not sure why. Apparently, when these 3 tourists arrived, the goat was also there.

Anyway, they arrive at this big empty lot flanked by some homes that to the American tourist eye probably appear as anything between unappealing to dangerous, and say to the cab driver "Is it safe for us to get out and walk around?"

Now, a friend of mine told me that "not all cab drivers in Buenos Aires are dishonest - only about 90% of them." So imagine a cab driver with the meter running being asked by three people the following:

"Should I get out of your cab and pay you now, or should you take me someplace else for more money?"

Guess what the cab driver said.

"Oh no - it's not safe."

So..... they decide to go buy leather. An excellent idea in Buenos Aires. So they tell the cab driver (who now knows he has 3 marks in his cab) to take them to "Sexo Sexo Sexo Murillo." Sexo replacing the number Seis. So the cab driver hears "Take me to Sex Sex Sex Murillo." At this point, I can only speculate as to his reaction to this, but it eventually is resolved that they are trying to go to a specific address on Murillo - an address well-known in BA as the leather district.

"No existe" he says. That address? Oh, that address doesn't exist. Yeah - no idea where that would be. But hey, if you want to buy leather, I know a place - I'll take you there.

Seriously.

So off they went, on the highway, into the Provincia, to some store in some unknown location while the cab driver lets the meter run as they look at leather jackets they don't want to buy and are warned they will never find another cab, so he'll just wait for them.

Eventually, they got back to the hotel safe and sound, with the only crime being ripped off by a dishonest cab driver - but hey, it's only 90% of them. Which is actually quite surprising, because despite BA being a safe city, everyone seems to know somebody who was briefly kidnapped by their cab driver and his co-horts and taken for a city-wide tour of ATMs - forced to withdraw cash to hand-over to the cab driver. You know - to pay the driver for the tour he's providing.

Me - I try to stick to the other 10%.