The Banditos Misteriosos of Boston did it again. Another fantastic event in the city that brought hundreds of Bostonians together. On June 28th the Banditos threw the First Annual Boston Scavenger Hunt, which was fun for its own sake. No prizes really, no cutthroat competition, just an excuse to take a lovely walking tour of the city while being a bit of a doofus.

I grew up in Massachusetts and figured after living in the Boston area for a few years, I’ve already seen all there is to see here. Well, I was totally wrong. That much I know after this scavenger hunt.  The route our team–the Tuff Muffins–took to complete the hunt ran us from Boston Common, all the way through the Back Bay, to Copley, and further south to Symphony Hall, all the way over through the South End to the Boston Center for the Arts, up through Bay Village to Chinatown, north again to Government Center and then back to the Commons.  So many of the things I saw along the route were totally new to me, and this isn’t even a sizeable chunk of the city, since we didn’t even get into neighborhoods like Roxbury, Dorchester and Jamaica Plain. Had we not run out of time, we would have made a quick stop in the North End as well. 

I’m not sure how many miles of walking that was, but I can tell you after four hours of alternately walking and jogging all that, I was wiped.

So what kind of scavenger hunt was it exactly? Well, we weren’t looking for objects, we were looking out for places. Each team of 10 people had a “passport” with a number of clues in it, and each clue referenced a location in Boston. I have to tell you, had it not been for my extremely savvy teammates I’m not sure what would have happened. Some of those clues were for some really obscure places (Pi Alley? Really?) At best I probably could have figured out a quarter of the clues, but putting our heads together my team actually figured out every single location clue.

I snagged our passport after the Hunt was over and scanned it in for posterity. You can check out all the clues on my Flickr account here: side one and side two. At each location there was a Bandito or two, ready with a task that each team had to complete. These tasks were all pretty zany, kind of a summer-camp-zany, including:

Passing a potato down a line using only your elbows (in front of the Irish Famine memorial statues):

Playing in an silent symphony (on the steps of Symphony Hall):

Writing a page of a children’s story (next to the Make Way for Ducklings statues):

Other favorite tasks of mine were the ribbon dancing in front of the Chinatown gates and handing a stranger a love letter in Post Office Square. (We all were grinning like idiots on that last one.)

We seem to have perplexed a lot of people wherever we appeared–lots of tiny flash mobs suddenly running the city made it seem like we were all in a mini-Amazing Race in Boston–but I was really heartened at how good natured Bostonians were to us during our strange tasks. The notoriously “cold” city didn’t seem that way while we were walking around. (Note that I’ve never thought of Boston as “cold” anyway, but I just figured that I’m used to its quirks by this point and haven’t noticed.) After this scavenger hunt though, I’m starting to wonder if the reputation is ill-deserved and if Boston really just needs better PR.

We passed this lovely bride and her party walking across the bridge in the Public Garden right by the swan boats.

Bay Village is picturesque but so tiny that it’s very easy to miss!

This group of men playing mahjong right by the Chinatown gates were not distracted one bit by our dancing antics.

My right knee still hasn’t forgiven me for those hours of jogging around the city, but next year I’ll be better prepared with much better shoes! Despite my wonky knee, I’m already looking forward to the Second Annual Boston Scavenger Hunt.

Seriously, what a great way to spend a Saturday in Boston. Can’t wait to see what the Banditos have in store for us next. Keep it up guys!