Quite possibly the biggest mainstream tourist hotspot in Buenos Aires, the colorful Caminito street in the otherwise run down barrio of La Boca is often looked down upon as commercial, touristy, tacky, tango-ey rubbish by locals and travel guides alike.However, I really think it is just trendy to say such things, because this small road and the immediate area around it do in fact have both an interesting history and the opportunity for taking some great photos, even though you will probably be surrounded by several American and Japanese tourists also happily snapping away before they quickly hop back onto their tour bus.But give Caminito a chance! You might just like it…What does Caminito mean?Camino literally means ‘way’ or ‘walkway’ in English, and the -ito or -ita ending tagged onto Spanish nouns means little or small. And so Caminito is often translated as either ‘little walkway’, ‘little road’, ‘little path’, or ‘little street’.All of these are correct. It is little! At less than 100 meters long, it was never going to win any awards for size, but then Buenos Aires claims to already has those in the bag - Avenida 9 de Julio for world’s widest street and Avenida Rivadavia for world’s longest! However, Caminito certainly makes up for its shortness with its amazing colors, and probably has won some kind of award before for greatest concentration of Japanese tourists per square meter.
