Palermo is bustling and the heat of the sun is beating down on us. We try walk where there is shade stopping of at a new agents to buy water every 10 minutes, I think most our budget for Buenos Aires will definately be taken up by water consumption.
We carry on walking until we reach the Evita Musuem. Evita is my favourite musical, sadly I even know all the words by heart so I was really looking forward to having a look round. The entrance fee was 15 pesos each, it works out around 10 pesos to a pound so it wasnt too bad. We also got a free Evita postcard each. I wont bore you with the details of Evita life, as you have probably come across the film or musical at some point. The musuem was nice, well presented and easy to follow. Its seems that in this modern day Evita is still revered in Buenos Aires, there are many areas in the city commemorated in her name.
Once we finished with the musuem we headed further into Recoleta. Recoleta is the well to do area in the BA where the elite live. The high society of Buenos Aires migrated to this area in the 1800´s when there was a yellow fever epidemic in San Telmo. Recoleta has become BAs prime tourist attraction primiraliy due to the local cemetary. Now this isnt what you think a cemetary should look like, this my friends is a mini village for the dead. The tomb stones are grander than our own Regency Palace. These grand designs line the streets of this ghost town which goes on for miles. The tour guide explained that you either have to be very rich or be somebody to claim a place in this VIP plot for the dead.
The tour guide actually told a harrowing story of a girl that was buried in this cemetary. I think her name from Sarina (not entirely sure on that) she was 19 years old and was heading to the opera with her mother when she fainted. The doctors confirmed she was dead and she was buried in one of the grand tombs. A few weeks later her grandmother who could not believe she had died so young visited her tomb to pay respect to find scratch marks on the coffin. Sarina had been buried alive, it turns out she had an illness that slows your pulse to give the illustion you are dead. The doctors back then did not know this and persumed she was dead. Since then is is tradition to leave the casket opened for 48hours to allow the corpse to rise from the dead before the actual burial.
There was actually a funeral on when we were there, we just saw people despersing from one of the tombs dressed in black. Until that point you almost forgot you were not only at a tourist attraction but also cemetary that is still used to this day. We left the cemetary and headed down ´Bellas Artes´ and ´Malba´, the arty part of the city. Boasting museums and more grand buildings. At this point that sun was taking its toll so we headed back to the hotel. We took our first bus ride in the city, we just flagged a bus that said Palermo and jumped on. We tried to give money to the bus man but he just ignored us, so we ended up getting off without paying. We only later read that most locals have a sube card, like an oyster card. Otherwise you pay via coins at a coin depenser as you enter the bus. You wouldnt really know unless you were told, its not very clear for tourist.
Happy with our free bus ride we arrived at our hotel, we had planned to have a nap then head to Almagro in the evening, another BA neighbourhood where the locals dance on the local square until 5am most evenings we were told. Unfortunately, we ended up missing a night completely as we both woke up 12 hours later!!!!!!! I think that sun and all that walking really tired us out. Oh well, were hoping to visit Almagro on Friday instead.
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