South America, Day 8: Buenos Aires, Argentina (Part 1)

My first stop this morning was the Cementario de la Recoleta, a famous cemetery located in the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires hosting the remains of BA's famous (or merely rich) families. The place is huge (maybe a quarter mile on each side), containing hundreds of crypts and monuments to the deceased. Its grid layout makes it feel like a city in its own right; a city of the dead.

Not all of the mausoleums are equally well-maintained. Some of them have fallen into clear disrepair - broken glass and trashed interiors. In some ways, these are even more interesting than the good ones.

But of course, the highlight (or at least, most visited site) in the cemetery is the mausoleum of the Duarte family, where Evita Peron's remains lie.

These flowers are all for Evita. Perhaps a little sad for the others in the tomb?

After the cemetery, I grabbed some lunch at a nearby restaurant to go: empanadas. 5 pesos ($1.25) a pop, or 6 for the fried one, and great value for money. The Argentine idea of spicy isn't particularly spicy, sadly. Neverthless, the Parque Thays was a nice venue to have a bite to eat.

$4 for three = win

My original plan for the day was to walk back down to the Subte, but the empanadas had taken me in the wrong direction, so I figured I'd walk along the northern edge of Recoleta back towards Palermo, past several parks. On the way, I passed a few sights not noted in my guidebooks:

One of the campuses of the Universidad de Buenos Aires

A giant sculpture called the Floralis Generica

I then turned left and headed into the Japanese Garden (a gift from the Japanese Embassy on the occasion of the visit of the Emperor and Empress), which put my 8 peso cover charge to good use. It's beautiful and peaceful - in dramatic contrast to the heavy traffic and constant honking on Av Sarmiento just outside.

Then, I made my way southwest on Av Sarmiento towards the Plaza Italia to head to the Buenos Aires car show. On the way, next to the Rural (the convention center hosting the show), I ran into a skate park with skaters, BMXers, and rollerbladers trying out the halfpipe:

Finally, I went in to the Buenos Aires International Car Show (very conveniently located 4 blocks from my hostel). SO MANY COOL CARS. But that's a whole blog post in itself.