I am getting almost 'versed' in the local bus system. Took a collectivo, a city bus, along Avenida de los Heroes to Recoleta. Recoleta is both, an elegant city neighbourhood and the site of one of the most famous and most elaborate final resting places in the world. The neighbourhood is a bit hoity toity, with elegant apartment houses, shady tree lined avenues (with WIDE sidewalks, covered with just as much dog shit as anywhere else), and high end shops and restaurants, which charge more than equivalent shops in other areas. It also is the preferred residential area for expatriats and temporaty foreign visitors, obvious in the clientele of the restaurants, which tend to present their menus in English. The cemetry reflects this exclusive social stratum, and only accepts people with the requisite status, money, power, family tree, political connections, and military honours.
Basilica Nuestra Senora de Pilar, the second oldest church in Buenos Aires, and integrated into the cemetry complex. It used to be part of a convent owned by the Padres Recoletos. The altar is silver plated and originates from Alto Peru.
A welcoming statue at the entrance of Recoleta Cemetery
The skyline of Recoleta cemetery is replete with angels, urns, crosses, cupolas, busts of generals and saints.
Spider webs cover enclosures, where neither dead of living have entered the crypts for some time.
A typical 'street' in the cemetry, with paved alleyways, ever present statues, and rows of tombs and mausoleums, audacious, no expense spared, Art Nouveau, Gothic, Classic...
Spending one's afterlife in one of these luxurious abodes beats having ones ashes spread in an ocean...
Some mausoleums are more than two stories high - and a few floors of basement as well. That is where the newly dead are stacked up on top of each other in artistic coffins, the oldest dead on the bottom, and the newest one on the top. There are small access doors into the nether worlds, with hand holds, where the grave attendants can hold on when lowering caskets.
This one, obviously occupied by quite wealthy dead, has it's lower burial floor open to sunlight, with the coffins resting on elegant saw horses.
This one, not quite so wealthy, has been taken over by the living. Someone had broken the lock and chain and appears to have created quite comfortable quarters amongst the silent remains. An upholstered chair, a little bunsen stove, a kettle, some water, mate paraphernalia, and cigarettes, what else would a living man need? And should he die - perish the thought - he can just stay amonst his rich and dead land lords.
Some, not so elaborate, are more practical. Their mausoloeums look like chests of drawers, marble of course, where each drawer has a window to allow a glance of the coffin inside, and an inscription of the departed inhabitant.
Some look like walk in closets, with the coffins resting on shelves.
Some have succumbed to the ravages of time or grave robbers. The marble closures have been broken or just fell apart, and the coffin inside is exposed to passers by.
Evita Peron is buried here, against the wishes of the Recoleta Cemetery elite, but she made it anyway. Now, her tumb is the major tourist attraction in the entire cemetery. A line up, several hundred yards long, seems to be a permanent fixture. Just to get a glimpse at Evita, for most tourist not more than the heroine of a musical with Madonna playing Evita. I skipped Evita, and looked at the other plentiful dead ones around.
Here a memorial to a powerful Bank Director. Many of these plaques, and many tumbs have dozens of them honoring the same deceased, are donated by friends, employees, army troops and family of course.
There is real grief here, not only the nostalgia of historical burials. Flowers for her mate...
Hearse Recoleta Style, an elongated golf cart with faded black fringes around the top. I wondered whether whoever was delivered thusly, had now ended up in the gaarbage bin.
The less rich corpses are deliverd to their hole in the ground via gurney...
Almost every Street of Buenos Aires, carrying the name of some famous politician, hero or warrior is represented on Recoleta cemetery, where the men and woman giving their names are buried.
Back to the living, and lunch in La Biela, one of the most famous and oldest cafes in Buenos Aires. It used to be a hang out Argentinians authors, Recoleta elite etc, however, today it was a mix of tourists and locals. Great people watching, and great prices (expensive as compared to bistros in Palermo). The menus show two prices, one if one eats inside, and one if one eats outside. Outside is more expensive by far.
