It has been a while...
Sorry folks for the lack of entries in the blog over the past week or so. So much to do, and with so little time means that one doesn´t have much opportunity to spend updating blog pages. The plan is to update much of this when Flic gets home, and leave the Antarctica adventures to Craig. He has time in Ushuaia when gets in off the boat from the land of ice, as well as a day in Santiago, so he has to have something useful to do... anyway...
Mendoza will be too lengthy to complete this afternoon (can you tell we are filling in time before we catch our flight to Santiago?), so I thought I would update you all on the most bizarre thing we have done all trip - visit a cemetary.
Ok, so you are probably thinking, "a cemetary, what is so amazing about that???". Well, let me tell you, this is no ordinary cemetary. It is the cemetary based in the district of Recoleta, one of the more ritzy suburbs of Buenos Aires. Walking up to the cemetary, one is rather dazzled by the fact that they have a 12 ft wall surrounding the area (can´t be letting those corpses escape now can we), and then above it, there appear to be what look like buildings - hmmm - strange when this is supposed to be full of graves. Maybe the caretakers need lots of storage space...
The entrance is a rather impressive ´gate´, that you walk through, to which one discovers that the ´buildings´one can see above the wall of the cemetary are not so much buildings, but the graves themselves. Yep, you guessed it, this isn´t where your average Tom, Dick and Juan are buried, but those that can obviously afford to be kept in death as they were in life - in all the glitz and glam of their earthly lives. Well, as ´glam´as you can be in death I assume.
The work that has gone into some of these monuments is amazing, although somewhat creepy. Many of the tombs have glass doors, intricate wood and iron work, stain glass windows, beautiful marble alters. And they often stand over 20ft tall. The coffins are another story...
I was a little creeped out to begin with, thinking that there were masses of coffins buried under these massive houses of tombs (most of those near the entrances appeared to simply have alters where people could leave gifts for their departed loved ones - glass of coke anyone???), however as we moved through the maze of grave houses, I realised that some of these contained acutual coffins which, if I had wanted to, I could have reached out and touched. Perfectly preserved in the tombs, these ornate boxes seems to rest easily among ´friends and family´(wonder what they do when someone moves into the neighbourhood they don´t particularly like???). We were to find out later from a local source that unlike many coffins, generally these are perfectly water/air tight, so that the bodies in them are preserved beautifully and when the grave house gets full (once all the relatives have come to stay), the older coffins are taken out, the body removed, and then cremated (the coffin can be reused you understand). Our local source was to inform us that he had a friend who once had the wonderful job of dealing with granny when more room was required at the inn- it seems the dress whe was wearing was in less shape than she was - ick!!!
This place is amazing (more than just for containing the grave of Evita Peron) and well worth a visit (if you can cope). There are many more stories, but are not for the faint stomached, so I will leave them for when I get home. This has certainly been one of the most memorable moments of the trip, and for more than just the scenery, let me tell you. Anyone who is thinking of filming in a cemetary for a really creepy night scene, this is most certainly this pick of the bunch.
Mendoza will be too lengthy to complete this afternoon (can you tell we are filling in time before we catch our flight to Santiago?), so I thought I would update you all on the most bizarre thing we have done all trip - visit a cemetary.
Ok, so you are probably thinking, "a cemetary, what is so amazing about that???". Well, let me tell you, this is no ordinary cemetary. It is the cemetary based in the district of Recoleta, one of the more ritzy suburbs of Buenos Aires. Walking up to the cemetary, one is rather dazzled by the fact that they have a 12 ft wall surrounding the area (can´t be letting those corpses escape now can we), and then above it, there appear to be what look like buildings - hmmm - strange when this is supposed to be full of graves. Maybe the caretakers need lots of storage space...
The entrance is a rather impressive ´gate´, that you walk through, to which one discovers that the ´buildings´one can see above the wall of the cemetary are not so much buildings, but the graves themselves. Yep, you guessed it, this isn´t where your average Tom, Dick and Juan are buried, but those that can obviously afford to be kept in death as they were in life - in all the glitz and glam of their earthly lives. Well, as ´glam´as you can be in death I assume.
The work that has gone into some of these monuments is amazing, although somewhat creepy. Many of the tombs have glass doors, intricate wood and iron work, stain glass windows, beautiful marble alters. And they often stand over 20ft tall. The coffins are another story...
I was a little creeped out to begin with, thinking that there were masses of coffins buried under these massive houses of tombs (most of those near the entrances appeared to simply have alters where people could leave gifts for their departed loved ones - glass of coke anyone???), however as we moved through the maze of grave houses, I realised that some of these contained acutual coffins which, if I had wanted to, I could have reached out and touched. Perfectly preserved in the tombs, these ornate boxes seems to rest easily among ´friends and family´(wonder what they do when someone moves into the neighbourhood they don´t particularly like???). We were to find out later from a local source that unlike many coffins, generally these are perfectly water/air tight, so that the bodies in them are preserved beautifully and when the grave house gets full (once all the relatives have come to stay), the older coffins are taken out, the body removed, and then cremated (the coffin can be reused you understand). Our local source was to inform us that he had a friend who once had the wonderful job of dealing with granny when more room was required at the inn- it seems the dress whe was wearing was in less shape than she was - ick!!!
This place is amazing (more than just for containing the grave of Evita Peron) and well worth a visit (if you can cope). There are many more stories, but are not for the faint stomached, so I will leave them for when I get home. This has certainly been one of the most memorable moments of the trip, and for more than just the scenery, let me tell you. Anyone who is thinking of filming in a cemetary for a really creepy night scene, this is most certainly this pick of the bunch.
posted by Flossie | 3:48 AM
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