Our main tourist activity for the day is a visit to La Recoleta cemetery – death as an art form. Before the fun, though, Christi and I have chores to do. And today is a big one: applying for Christi’s visa so she enter Brazil. The Brazilian consulate is a few blocks north of Plaza San Martin. It’s a tatty, busy place on the fifth floor of a nondescript building. Fortunately, the consular official takes a shine to Christi (having refused the American ahead of Christi a visa), saying her visa would be ready in two days. Oh and by the way don’t forget the visa fee: US$130.
The name La Recoleta not only refers to the cemetery, but also to an exclusive neighborhood frequented by Old Money. Under Christi’s expert directions we walk to the cemetery’s main entrance, but before we indulge in some grave snooping we are hungry for lunch. Many tourist restaurants lie in wait for innocent victims and seem disappointed when we shun their expensive, bland fare in favor of something cheaper: 2 large hot dogs with fancy trimmings and 2 sodas for US$5 – a real bargain.
Opened in 1882, La Recoleta was the first public cemetery in the city of Buenos Aires (BA). It covers an area of 55,000 square meters and contains some 4,800 vaults. And these vaults include huge mausoleums with elaborate sculptures and stained-glass windows that have steps down to catacomb-like subterranean chambers to simple plots with simple headstones. Unlike the cemetery in Punta Arenas, La Recoleta does not have topiary cypresses or street signs and it actually appears smaller than the Punta Arenas version. And since La Recoleta is in the middle of the capital city, it is surrounded by buildings inhabited by the living. Personally, I wouldn’t want my bedroom view to be a mausoleum but weird Christi said she wouldn’t mind.
Although La Recoleta is a public cemetery the list of people interred here is a who’s who of recent Argentine history, featuring a host of military and political figures. The most famous incumbent though is Maria Eva Duarte de Peron (aka Evita). Born into a humble family in the provincial town of Junin around 1919 she moved to BA in the mid 1930s to become an actress. Ten years later she met and married Juan Peron – a military general and also head of the Department of Labor. A year after their marriage in 1945, Juan Peron became President of Argentina. He was head of state until a military coup forced him into exile in 1955. By this point Evita was already dead. She passed away tragically young (a victim of cancer) on July 26th 1952 aged just 33. She was the Princess Diana of her age and is regarded with saint-like status in Argentina. However, Evita’s time in power is marked with controversy as well as achievement: jailing opposition leaders while at the same time extending suffrage to women and striving to improve the lives of the poorest members of Argentine society. The plaque that identifies her family ‘Duarte’ mausoleum is mobbed by pilgrims and tourists and bedecked with flowers and notes. Evita was and remains ‘Our Lady of Hope.’
Returning to the world of the living, Christi and I wander down to the waterfront and the newest barrio in town, Puerto Madero. Stop for cake at Il Gatto and eat dinner at TGI Fridays – we just couldn’t resist the lure of US chain food!
Blog post by Roderick Phillips, author of Weary Heart – a gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching, laugh-wrenching ride.
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