Today we head out locally. Peter meets us at our place and off we go to the Recoleta cemetery. but first we need some coffee. We stop at Aroma and are totally confused by ordering. It's more like a Starbucks and the menu reflects that. I just got used to the cafe con leche action and now I have to switch back over to lattes and au lait but not in my standard tall, grande, venti sizes? So we ask the difference between the single and double. the lady shows us the different sized coffee mugs, okay done. Greg is just happy to more than a little shot of coffee and happily orders a double Americano. Peter and I go for double lattes. Then the guy shows us the glasses and says doubles?? um, okay. Greg gets his expected order and Peter and I have huge, tall glasses. apparently in Australia this is common, but they are really huge glasses, even to Peter. The coffee is so hot we can't hold the glass and Peter's trick of wrapping the napkin around doesn't work since we are in the land of tiny napkins and apparently really large glasses. they are actually the biggest glasses I have seen in BA. so we drink our coffee I eat a medialuna (croissant with a sweet glaze) as we people watch across the street from the cemetery.
We go through the entrance are realize there is an actual funeral burial in progress. The car and coffin are right there and men are about to unload it. A ton of Portenos are standing around in nice clothes. Feels weird to see an actual funeral at a very public attraction. We walked past and start our visit.
Peter is a professional photographer by trade and I weasel in my way to become his little grasshopper-- soaking up everything he is doing with his "real" camera. He is very sweet and shows me what he is shooting and even taught me a few tricks as it's hard to shoot inside the tombs. Poor Greg not only has to deal with me taking a million pictures, he now has a real photographer holding up our pace. :)
We see lots of cats. Skinny, dirty, stray cats totally content lounging about in the cemetery. They barely glance at us as we zoom in on them. Off to see Evita's final resting place. We find it by the droves of people filing in. It's actually down a tight corridor and pretty much the standard size, so it's hard to get any real good pictures. except for Peter of course. so I take one tiny shot and depend on him for the good ones to be emailed to me :)
We roam around totally amazed by these mausoleums and tombs. They are literally tiny marble/stone buildings. most have the caskets either right inside or underground, though we saw a few that were stacked up. Sometimes the caskets are stacked on top of each other, sometimes elaborate shelves hold them. found a few with windows out that we of course poked out heads and cameras through. Many of the larger ones had little prayer areas with single pews and everything.
After hours??? there we decided it was time to hit the Recoleta artisans market. Flea market type set up for many hand made items. Got a few gifts and then we were starving for lunch. My TripAdvisor friend and ex-pat hooked me up with some local information. She is living here in Recoleta. So we head over to a place she recommended for pizza, Pizza Cero (recoleta village near cinema Vte. Lopez 2038)) and had yummy pizza. $148 AR (for three personal pizzas, a big specialty salad, water, beer and tip for all three of us). there was a guy playing a guitar in the plaza playing the Beatles, sunshine, but not too hot, and great company. what more could we ask for? Greg ordered an asparagus and cheese, I got a ham, tomato, garlic and cheese and both were great.
After lunch we walked to Volta (Ayacucho and Quintana-- locations everywhere) for gelato. OH MY GOD. (I've been saying that a lot down here). To die for gelato or Helado as they call it here and if you order a cup or any larger cone, you get two flavors. I got banana split and chocolate temptation. Greg got chocolate nero (which was about double in thickness as mine) and (can't remember). next time I will be hip to the ordering process. our cashier was not happy with us and we didn't realize we needed to order first, keep our receipt, wait our turn for the other guy to get to us. we then had to tell our order all over again. so I think we just purchase the container and then order our helado. According to other sources, they actually deliver to! check out this review!
We head up back to our place and decide to look for a bottle of wine since we are having new porteno friends picking us up for dinner (at 10) and they might be coming in. We discover a Disco market TWO BLOCKS from our place, just as big, if not bigger than we went to before. oh well. now we know. :)
My face is feeling a bit better now and we took a little siesta to rest up for tonight. Apparently Edgardo and his wife are taking us to some place that you order as much meat as you want. They give a green card to let them know "keep it coming" or a red one to say stop. should be interesting.
More photos of Recoleta click here
More photos of Recoleta click here
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