Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

<prior or next>

I wanted to see Recoleta Cemetery because it was supposed to be an impressive collection of mausoleums, crypts and tombs. �John wanted to go because Evita is buried there, and because it�s supposed to be an impressive collection of mausoleums and tombs, but mainly �cause, well�Evita. �

After the fact we found out that there are a couple of common mistakes made by tourists searching for Evita�s grave, both of which we managed to avoid. The first is to ask a taxi driver to take you to Peron�s grave.� Apparently the driver will assume you mean the former president, except he wasn�t important enough for burial at Recoleta.� The second error is wandering the cemetery looking for Eva Peron, when she�s buried in her family crypt, so she�s actually Eva Duarte.

We looked up were to go on the info map at the entrance, but still wound up getting turned around in the numerous small alleys of the cemetery. �Backtracking a gang of camera yielding middle-aged Japanese tourists led us straight to it.� Stereotypical, but it worked, and led us straight to the Duarte crypt.

The structure wasn�t that impressive, but the feeling that Eva Peron invoked in others was interesting.� Nearly every square inch of the thing was covered in flowers, cards, and notes praising here as a saint, and pledging eternal love to her.� The surrounding crypts were not so well respected and had people pressing up against them to get clear shots of their loved ones and friends standing next to fame.

The rest of the cemetery was amazing. �Filled with huge, ornate, overwhelming, and rundown crypts. �It�s a testament to the amount of wealth the nation once had, or more specifically the wealth that its richest and oldest families had, and their willingness to outspend each other. � It was keeping up with the Jones to a wildly extravagant and morbid extreme. �But that seems to have been a while ago. � There were many workers and groundskeepers on site doing things, but it looks as if many of the families no longer pay for the necessary upkeep.

Marble statues of angels, soldiers, and heroes were dirt and soot covered. �Plants grew on and in crumbling stonewalls.� Glass panes and wooden doors were broken and damaged. �Looking through those windows and doors, many of the crypts had spaces for coffins at ground level as well as small stairs leading below. � Some of the coffins had their lids slightly opened, adding to over all gothic feel.� In that last respect, it helped that the morning we were there it was gray and overcast.� It even sprinkled on us for a few minutes, the only time it rained the entire trip.

In the park outside of the cemetery there was an ongoing crafts fair aimed at selling trinkets to tourists.� John bought some Evita art from a woman who thanked him for his good taste.� She lamented that these days it seemed that the only thing people wanted to buy were t-shirts with Ch� Guevera�s face on it, and she really didn�t enjoy painting him because he was just so ugly.� Eva Peron on the other hand was �as beautiful as an angel and a joy to paint.�

I left the fair with a couple of scarves made from alpaca wool for my Mom and sister.� They were more of a Chilean souvenir, but would have cost three times the price in Santiago.

On the other side of the park was the Design Center Mall, a thing filled with pricey interior design stores meant to ensure that your home life was a hip and fashionable as possible.� It was interesting to walk thorough and gape at, though not a place to actually shop at.

The next stop wasn�t so much a stop as much as a long meandering through streets and having lunch at a psuedo-Parisian caf�.� We eventually ended up walking along Avenida Santa Fe, which in that part of town consisted of a larger retail district.

A couple of stores there had ads in a gay Buenos Aires guide.� The first store was filled with bright, tight club clothes.� The kind I never wear, so overall it wasn�t that interesting to me, although, it did give me a partial view of a rather cute young British tourist trying on jeans in an inadequately covered changing stall.

The second place sold an assortment of skimpy under things, a few of which, John bought for his photography business.� From what John has told me, the pair that I thought were the tackiest (small white lycra briefs with a big black hand print on each cheek), are one of the most popular items of clothes he has available for models to wear.� Lot�s of guys with Daisy Duke fantasies I guess.

More later,

nico

�

<prior or next>

� 2000-2007