Our stay in Montevideo, Uruguay was a one-day stop on the way to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Montevideo is renovating much of its port area, with beautiful buildings like this part of the skyline.

Buenos Aires had so many port trips to offer, including an all-day trip to Iguazu Falls, a tour of the city, and an old-fashioned fiesta at a ranch outside the city. As luck would have it, the country's Finance Minister resigned the day before we hit port. It made for a certain amount of unrest in the city, but no port trips were canceled.

Carolyn took a tour of La Recoleta Cemetery, a site considered by many to be at the cultural "heart" of Argentina. Its name stems from "Huerto de los Recoletos" (The Reclusive Monks' Orchard) and the space was first created as a public cemetery in 1822. Its design was roughed out by engineer Prospero Catelin, and it contains sculptures and designs from architects from around the world. It has grown rather haphazardly from its original design, and today it is rare for new mausolea to be built within its precincts. While the city owns the property, the builders of the mausolea are responsible for taxes and some upkeep. Occasionally a family will fall on hard times and as a result, move the inhabitants to a less-expensive cemetery and put the mausoleum up for sale. This is the most expensive real estate in the country!

The country's elite is represented here. Not only do (and did) the upper classes live in style, from the looks of this cemetery (which boasts many architectural styles and icons) they know how to die well, too. Some of the mausoleums cost up to $2 million dollars (USD) allowing these elites to flaunt their wealth and position even in death! One mausoleum has a separate servants' entrance so the family's faithful retainers can join their masters for eternity!

Each mausoleum is decorated with symbols, gestures, and images representing the physical and spiritual reality of death and the afterlife. Some of the most common are owls (for wisdom), roses (for eternal life), cherubs (for heaven), Christian crosses, and Jewish menorahs.

Eva Péron ("Evita") is buried in La Recoleta, to the pride of the commoners who loved her, and unhappiness of the elite classes she alienated. She was first taken to an unmarked grave in Italy, but eventually returned to Argentina and laid to rest in a secure crypt covered with bomb-proof concrete.

Ironically, Evita's husband, Juan Péron (who led his country) is not buried here, but in another cemetery in Buenos Aires.

According to local legend, one testament to the continuing mythos about Eva Péron and Madonna's depiction of her in Evita is that tour guides often find themselves being asked by tourists for the directions to the place where Madonna is buried.

This man buried here fought Jack Dempsey in 1929. He wanted to be remembered as he was in his prime: a virile, youthful boxer.

The man who designed this tomb (and who now occupies it) was a contemporary and colleague of Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi, whose influences are obvious in the stonework and door posts

The man buried here was a big fan of Egyptian symbols.

Mario Braun's guidebook, Recoleta: Arte Y Simbolas, introduces this city of the dead:

For some the dignity and majesty of the cemetery is a necessary reference of our society and its history. For others, it is only the quick visit — not without a certain disrespectful attraction — to the tomb of Evita.

Among this assorted lot, tour guides strive to explain ... the history of Recoleta, the convent, the large number of coffee shops, deluxe restaurants in the neighbourhood, which stress the contrast between the two worlds — the one of worldly pleasures and the one of devotion — hardly separated by a wall.

We are approaching the entrance to the cemetery. In front of us there is the entrance to a "city" set in our urban topography like a mirror of time. A city of the non-living, a city of eternal stay.

 

La Recoleta is indeed laid out like a city, with hundreds of mausoleums and tombs crowded onto each street. Some 5,000 people are buried here. Each mausoleum sits atop a 50-meter-deep burial chamber or crypt. Some crypts hold up to 70 occupants, and some feature small sitting rooms and altars so the living can commune with their dead.

The central streets are treelined, while other outlying streets have very little vegetation. One crypt had a small vegetable garden to one side, sporting a half-dozen tomato plants! Many simply had flower bouquet adornments.

The man buried in this pyramid-shaped tomb was a member of a Masonic lodge.

Many tombs are decorated with stained-glass windows and wrought-iron doors.

This elaborate cross is the door to a family crypt. Every decoration on the facade symbolizes some aspect of death, mourning, and everlasting life.

A "sun door" tomb. The rising and setting Sun on the equinoxes shines directly through this door. A symbol of birth, death, and rebirth rolled into one simple doorway.