Argentina Part Two

Numero Dos

On the second day we wanted to visit the main cemetery in BA and to walk around more of the city and see some markets and whatnot.  We had to scrounge around to find coins for the bus because apparently change is very hard to come by in Argentina (or at least BA) and the bus only takes coins—go figure.  The problem is so bad that when you pay for something at a register they will round to the nearest dollar because no one has the change, not even the stores or gas stations.  Needless to say we all got upset that they wouldn’t take paper bills on the bus because it took us hours to find somewhere that could give us coins.  Sorry, moving on.  We took a bus out to the Recolleta district and walked around the market for a little before heading to the cemetery.   On the way we passed this church that has famous pillars, or something like that, we had talked about it in Pre-port so we stopped in quick to check it out before moving on.

The cemetery was the coolest ever and it didn’t feel like a cemetery at all.  It is located at the top of a hill and has this grand arched entrance that is just on some random street.  There is no grass in the facility, the walkways are covered—not paved and not stone but something similar to cover the ground—and all of the ‘graves’ are this little buildings of various kinds of stone.  They range from very simple to extremely ornate and they have the family name over a little doorway.  Most of the doors have glass and when you look in you can see a little alter-type structure, many of them had statues or pictures of Jesus and some had flowers on top.  There was also a staircase, sometimes covered by a grate, that lead downward—to be honest it looked super cool and I was a bit tempted to go down and see what was at the bottom but obviously I did not.  Most of the buildings also had stained glass in one side with varying designs though not all of them did.  We set a time to meet back up and all wandered around haphazardly gazing around in awe.  It was unlike any cemetery I have ever seen and it was almost fun in a way.  If it were not a cemetery and a place of respect it would be a really sweet place for night games—just saying. 

After wandering around for a bit and looking at all of the grave buildings we wanted to find Evita’s grave site.  We tried to follow some of the tour groups but none of them were in English so we quickly gave up on that.  Then we decided to try random aisles and look for the really ornate buildings, assuming that she would have a fairly big or important looking one.  Turns out she has one like most of the other moderate buildings and it is located in a random aisle.  Granted there was a huge crowd around it and it was covered in flowers so that was the one give-away.  We took some pics and went by quickly to let others see it and then headed back out to the market for a while longer. 

Down the road from the market there was a giant sculpture of a metal flower that has petals that open during the day and close at night.  I have no idea what the significance of it is but it was really cool so we checked it out.  On the way we passed by the University which we were shocked to find out is completely free—that’s right, FREE.  You don’t have to pay to go there and the professors volunteer to teach there.  It’s a good university too and the profs are highly respected, not just random people off the street.  Needless to say we were all a little jealous.

Well to be honest I am super tired so I promise more tomorrow.   Love and miss you all!

~Colleen