Life, Death and Evita’s Grave

Recoleta seemed, at least to me, the most upscale area I have seen here in Buenos Aires.  The wide Avenida Libertad is framed by old buildings with beautiful balconies and smooth, elegant marble entrances.  I saw small cafés, beautiful (and equally delicious) pastries, and people that were very easy on the eyes.  I heard that wealthy people live in this area, and I have no doubt about it, especially after visiting Recoleta’s Cemetery.  

Impressive sculpture.  Cementerio de Recoleta



Visiting a cemetery was not my first thought when we arrived to Buenos Aires. At first, I was just curios about Eva Peron’s last resting place.  It has been recommended for many, so we decided to visit.
After passing the wide entrance gates, we saw a small, pristine chapel featuring a Christ’s sculpture.  We passed this quickly, however, and went ahead to enter the actual cemetery. 

In front of my eyes appeared what seems to be a small city, with structures that are not easy to recognize at first.  We started walking through the narrow halls and were able to differentiate the marble tombs that lay next to each other.  I do not mean close. They are together, like irregular objects cramped on a small shelf.  By now, I had completely forgotten about Peron’s tomb.  I was looking closely, noticing every detail around us. 

Every corner, flower, and name here tells a story.  This place tells about hopes of reaching a place higher than this Earth.  A state were suffering, sadness and worry are left behind.  Isn’t that interesting that across the globe, many cultures hold the same idea about death?

Grave Detail

The cemetery, however, says more about life. It tells of about families, their traditions, faith and morals.  This place talks about wealth and poverty, revolutions, loss, honor and triumph.  While being there, I thought about life and death.  I thought about how time, in a way, repeats itself.  The same stories of love, children and family we live today are also buried here.  Remembrances of life made cold stone for now and years to come.

Then, I remembered. We have not seen Peron’s grave!  We were now walking as fast as we can because they were closing.  It is getting darker, and colder.  Cats are walking around meowing, giving the place an even more dramatic look and feeling.   We finally found it. The Duarte Family’s burial place looks humble compared to some of the elaborated mausoleums we saw.  I think that suits Evita’s life, but her story deserves another post.

 

Evita's Grave





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Recoleta Cemetery



Last flight out. For me anyway.

The time has come...my last day in Buenos Aires and it's back to reality.  One more week of work before my contract ends and I'm off to Alaska for a month.  Natalia will stay in BA and continue posting updates on Twitter and here, I'll be doing the same on the other blog.

One month apart...as some say in mi tierrita, chale wey.

Party in the sky

A scene from the party.

We were back on the plane.   After so many hours in the same space, sharing the same bathrooms, walking the same hallways, making the same long lines, going to the same hotel, all of the passengers kind of became familiar with each other.   As we greeted our neighbors, others were talking about the news and trying to be positive about reaching our final destination.   Many passengers were chatting.  Everyone sat quickly, and seemed ready to get this over with.  We had, hopefully, 5 more hours of flight.

The plane took off.  There was no entertainment this time, due to the flight being an irregular one.  I decided to listen to music.   Jose Luis was busy on his computer.  The chatter became louder, as well as their laughter.  I looked.   A group of passengers were visiting.  It seemed they were having fun.  I saw one of them reaching for their luggage.  To my surprise, it was a guitar!  Sure enough, they started singing!

This shameless “serenata” got many of us out of our seats.  Children and grownups clapped, sang along, requested songs, and laughed.  Some of them even walked around singing La Bamba!  Some of the flight attendants joined for a while.  As one of them said, it was a “party in the sky”.  It was only when we were about to land that we went back to our seats!   Everyone clapped when the captain announced, “welcome to Buenos Aires”.

Lima, Peru - Natalia's view.

Our plane got delayed one more day due to volcanic ash.  After waiting in Bolivia for some time, we flew back to Lima.  That meant about 3 more hours on the plane, plus waiting at the airport trying to find out how the airline was going to handle 200 passengers stuck in a city they were not traveling to.  Everyone was exhausted!

It was about 1am when we arrived to the designated hotel, The Ibis in Miraflores.   Every single person in the hotel was extremely patient and welcoming. They smiled, fed and accommodated a huge group of tired travelers.   Impressive.

Next morning, having time to kill before our afternoon flight, we decided to walk around.  Miraflores’ streets looked busy.  People walking, businesses were open, street vendors and heavy traffic.  El Parque Central was colorful thanks to the gardens placed around the plaza.  Not far from there, we saw another park, this one facing the Pacific Ocean.   This second park is part of a tiny mall, so we decided to try some Peruvian food.  The ceviche was outstanding.

Maybe it was the breathtaking sight, the sound of the waves or the crisp air.  Maybe it was the delicious food, or the kindness of Peruvians, but all tensions were gone.   We got a good taste of Peru, and now we plan to come back for more. 

We were back at the airport at 2:30 pm.  If all goes as planned, we will land in Buenos Aires close to midnight.

Lima, Peru - Jose Luis' view.

Tuesday, June 14th

We landed last night in Lima, Peru.  Three days pretty much gone to waste on an already short vacation.  I felt like Tom Arnold on Soul Plane (You won't know unless you've seen it).  I'll post pictures later.  Anyway, we managed to get off of the plane fairly quickly and headed to the terminal.  American Airlines had no idea that we would be arriving and only had one person working the counter to set us up with a taxi and hotel room for the night.  Luckily we were very close to the front of the line as there was only one employee working the counter.

We got our vouchers, got in the cab and headed to the hotel.  We got a few tips from and old woman who rode in the shuttle with us, and contradicting advice from a younger woman who confirmed what every traveler should already know:  there is crime everywhere, just needs to be aware of one's surroundings.  The older woman said that we must not read the newspapers.  "People get killed over sneakers."

We arrive at Hotel Ibis, highly recommended.  It's a new hotel, they were actually in their "soft opening" so the staff was extremely helpful.  I hope it stays that way as the hotel was really nice.  The room was small, but it had what we needed.  Did I mention in an earlier post to remember Peru is on 220v?  The hotel staff let us borrow the only converter they had so we could charge our devices.

I had a pretty good ham and cheese sandwich that night, saw a little TV and went to sleep.  Woke up around eight so we could head down for breakfast.  Buffette as usual, not bad at all.  They also offered us free lunch, but we decided to try out one of the restaurants/tourist traps by the coast.  We both had ceviche, which was really good and the fresheshestest.

We walked through the city, not too far from the hotel as we needed to make it back to the hotel where they would take us back to the airport.  2PM.  Sure enough, another line.  We got our boarding passes and headed to the "soul plane".  It took off pretty fast, short taxi and we were in the air (still are, I guess as I'm writing this on the plane).

I am not too religious, but I pray that we can finally land in Buenos Aires, book a hotel, get some rest and start our vacation.  I also need to continue planning next month's trip to Alaska.  That will be interesting as well.