Being a Tourist Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 in my Being a Tourist series. Anyone who has traveled to Buenos Aires will likely be able to tell you about the two places you must visit in the city. This is because every Porteño you speak to will say the same two places. First is 9 de Julio followed by the Recoleta Cemetery. It's pretty obvious why 9 de Julio is so important.....there are a ton of monuments, government buildings, the Casa Rosada, and the list just goes on and on. However, many people may be thinking why on Earth is a cemetery really the second place of interest for people in a huge city like Buenos Aires. Honestly I couldn't figure it out myself but then I went. And now I understand.


The next few paragraphs are going to focus on a little bit of history yet again, because I guess secretly I have always wanted to be a history teacher like a large majority of my friends and even one of my cousins. If history bores you or you have no interest in expanding your intellectual prowess beyond what you already think you know feel free to again skip to the pictures below the line of yellow asterisks.


So what is sooooooo important about this freaking cemetery?? Well first off let me say it is not really that big a place...I mean Riverside cemetery in Fairhaven is easily bigger area wise than the entire Recoleta Cemetery, however I would like to bet that there are probably 2-3X the number of people in the Recoleta Cemetery that are in Riverside. This is because Recoleta cemetery is not a grassy place with a bunch of headstones, its a metropolis of mausoleums towering one right next to the other holding between 10-20 dead relatives in each site.


And now the history lesson begins. I think two things are probably the main contributing factors to the creation of a place like Recoleta Cemetery. One is that Buenos Aires (and Argentina as a country) have historically been dominated by Catholicism. And if there is one thing I can tell you about Catholics its that they love being buried together. This of course is completely anecdotal unless you count the giant catacombs in Rome, the mausoleums throughout the Catholic dominated countries, and the fact that I think a large majority of my family will be buried within 50 ft of each at Riverside cemetery. But I digress, the Catholicism within Buenos Aires clearly placed a great emphasis on the need for a proper burial blessed by the Church. The other contributing factor to the creation of a colossal city of catacombs is the amount of money these people had. The names of the families that reside in this cemetery are well known throughout the Latin American world for being in charge of governments, militaries, universities, and so on. Honestly, its as if each family was attempting to prove their rank of importance by how big, grand, or over-the-top (in some instances) they could make their mausoleum.


Now as I said there would be a small history lesson involved. The above paragraph was not it! Sorry....anyways the real history lesson comes in with why I was actually a little excited to visit the cemetery. This is the final burial place of Eva Duarte. For those of you who don't understand that let me re-phrase....Its where EVITA is buried!


Okay so again maybe not exciting to everyone, but to me it was fascinating and here's why. Long and short of why Eva is so important to Argentine history is because she came from nothing, became arguably the most important woman in Argentine history, and fought to create a middle class in the country. Now add on to this the fact that she may or may not have slept to the top, been a bit over the top in her own personal spending when she was in power, and that people in Argentina (specifically the descamisados) LOVED her. And I'm not talking the way we love our President. Uh uh.....I'm talking the way I love Kennedy family or the way middle aged white women like Oprah. Get it yet? But that isn't even the best part of the story.


Eva was married to Juan Perón. They were basically the leaders of their own party which was named after them. Eva was the rallier and Juan was the political figure head. The next part of this story is what I have heard since coming here to Argentina...and it gets good....trust me. So Eva died while Juan was in office, but before she could be buried in a cemetery alongside the Descamisados (literally the shirtless, but basically the poor folk she came from) there was a coup. Juan was kicked out of power and the new ruler shipped Eva's body out of the country. He was petrified that her grave site among the people he wanted to oppress would become a rallying point and he would be screwed....so off to Italy under a fake name her body went. Juan fled, I think to Paraguay and eventually to Spain. Still no one knew, except for the government that Eva resided in Italy, until the early 70's when it was finally revealed that she was hidden away in catacomb in Milan.


At this point the story gets a little weird. Juan Perón, married to his 3rd wife has Eva's body flown to Spain and displays it in his house. Yea...seriously.....I don't know about you, but I'm thinking someone needs to learn to let go and if I was the third wife I would definitely be a little peeved....but to each his own I guess.


Eventually, in 1973, Juan returned to Argentina and became the President once more. He died in office and his third wife actually took over as the first female President in the Western Hemisphere. But the story isn't over. Juan's third wife had Eva's body flown back to Argentina and displayed alongside her husband's for a brief period before she was able to bury them properly. Oddly enough she had Eva buried within Recoleta cemetery among the very people in Argentina that she fought her entire life against and who absolutely hated her. To make sure her body was safe certain measures were taken including some trap doors, fake coffins, and lots of locks. Unfortunately, Isabel (Juan's third wife) didn't have all of those measures in place to protect her husband's body. So shortly after his burial his grave was broken into and his hands were cut off. Now for those of you who are cultured and sophisticated, I am sure you have seen the movie Evita with Madonna playing Eva and understand the significance. For those of you who don't get it keep reading my blog eventually I will post something entitled my Evita moment....then you'll get it.
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Okay now even if you hate history....that's some jacked up crap right??? Great story if you ask me....anyway.....here are the pictures....commentary per usual:

This is the wall around the cemetery. You can
actually see the tops of some of the monuments
from the street outside and from the mall...
So if while you're shopping you want to check on
the dead you need only peak out the window.

Clearly this is not a cemetery. However, this is what is
right next to the wall on the right here. I thought
I would try to recreate the dichotomy for you....I think I failed
But you get the point.

Part of the entrance....like I said for my history readers...a very Catholic country.

The Entrance...there is a guy at the front who asks for a donation and like a dumb tourist I thought it was for the whole cemetery.....turns out he's not from the cemetery at all. And the pamphlet he gives you is not a map. Even though he draws on it and tells you where certain graves are....it is only educational material on AIDs, which I found interesting, but it didn't help me find anything....at all..

  

This is actually inside of the cemetery. What looks like building on  either side are not nice shops....unless you're looking to buy a dead person, but I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon.

The next few are just to show you how ornate the actually mausoleums and monuments are....they rival anything here in the US that I have ever seen. Its really quite incredible.

This one had 20 people above ground.....yea a lot of people

This one sort of reminded me of the entrance to church...

Okay now this one was just amazing! Notice in the lower left corner the statue of the mother breast feeding one of her children while holding the other one. This angel, which because of the landscaping, appears to be standing on a tree. and bust of the head of the family that rests at the very top. Now add all of this to the fact that the natural rock that appears in the lower right corner of the picture is simply part of the rock that this entire scene was carved out of and you get why this one was just incredible.

This one is to again just show you how it really resembles a small
shopping area in the city, but it is in fact just a small,
cozy city street of mausoleums.

Now time for the reason I was excited to go....EVA PERÓN......................

Just so everyone knows.....eventually this is how you find Evita's grave.....apparently there is always somewhat of a crowd.

   

                                               

                                                                    All of those flowers....are fresh and real....crazy....

I'm going to end this post with some pictures of some of the angels that I took. I realize I have made quite a few jokes in this post and you know I don't really want to go to hell for being completely inappropriate so....hopefully the angels act as some sort of penance...

   

Okay....I couldn't help it....this is the only grave keeper I saw for the whole place though.....so in a way he's sort of like an angel right??? Whatever....I guess I should probably buy some sunscreen.