Don't Cry For Me Argentina

I forgot to mention the Recoleta Cemetery that we visited in Buenos Aires. It is perhaps the coolest place I've been where dead people are buried.


The Cemetery is situated in the fancy Recoleta neighborhood and is a large enclosure where hundreds of monuments are built to the honor the dead. The grounds were well-groomed yet still very creepy. Many visitors (and stray cats) milled about the grave sites.


The cemetery, or rather mausoleum, if we are being precise with our terms, boasts of the graves of many past Argentine presidents and of Eva Peron, the very person whom the play, Evita, is based upon. We had to do a little detective work to find her grave, which more or less involved us trailing two guys who were talking about finding her grave. I suppose that kind of made me feel like a spy...


I think the appeal of the cemetery lies in the fact that it is both somber yet commemorative, dark yet sunny, creepy yet beautiful, aging yet manicured, peaceful yet lively, old yet invigorating.