La Recoleta Cementerio

Founded in 1822, this cemetery is so densely filled with art and memorials that it was hard to photograph one great statue for another that stood in the way; that's why so many of these shots are angled virtually straight up. We are not usually drawn to opulence so we were surprised at how interesting we found this place, and how much we liked wondering through it (though, to be honest, the lovely weather was a powerful factor). In fact, we so enjoyed the experience that when we stumbled onto Evita’s tomb, it was really just an asterisk on the page, and not a very exciting mausoleum at that. I think pictures give some insight into our pleasure at the adventure, and will post them as soon as I decode the error messages I'm getting. 

But as much as we enjoyed it, we also recognized that this is no cemetery for poor folks (though the guidebook says one of the first two people buried in this public cemetery was a “black freedboy, Juan Benito”). Lots of slave or impoverished labor went into the creation of these monuments, as well as tending the rich folks while they were alive. One could make the case that this is one way to support the arts, but for my physicist and me, we say: let’s support the arts while we are alive and when we are dead, cremate our asses, scatter our ashes and send any assets we leave behind to Oxfam or Unicef or something like that.