Recoleta

Mom and sis arrived on March 9th for a quick three-day visit, which is an absurdly short amount of time to complete the tourist circuit in Buenos Aires, but we gave it a damn good shot and put countless miles on our shoes.

Day one was a walking tour of Recoleta, historically the neighborhood of the rich. It's a bit more socioeconomically diverse today, though it retains a hyper-elegant style. No place embodies that more than the Recoleta Cemetery, where numerous presidents, military leaders, writers and civic leaders have been interred.

The most famous resident is Eva "Evita" Peron. Her grave is far from the most elaborate, although it is the most heavily visited, and fresh flowers surround the site every day.

The largest tomb in the cemetery has three levels and enough room for over 300 coffins. I found this out while eavesdropping on a guided tour. Apparently only 27 or so currently occupy it. The tomb belongs to a French aristocratic family. The most famous member is a Nobel Prize winner, though another claim to fame is that the family sold some of their land to Jimmy Carter, only to discover later that the land contains one of the largest fresh water aquifers in the world.

The tour guide lamented that Argentines have always been a little too eager to make a profit on selling things whose values always seem to explode afterward.

Sarah naturally found the place a photographer's paradise, and I'm eager to see her pictures, though if her turn around time is anything like the pictures from Colombia last May, which I still haven't seen, I won't hold my breath. ;)

Before the cemetery, we also visited the Floralis Genérica, a 20-story, 13-ton flower monument, the petals of which open and close at the beginning and end of each day based on hydraulic power. I am completely enamored with it and will probably lose count of my visits to see it by the time I leave Buenos Aires.

More posts and pictures to come of the other segments of the visit by mom and sis.