Cementerio de la Chacarita

We spent another two glorious weeks in Buenos Aires, beginning November 20, 2008. The first week was unseasonably hot (90's but welcome) and the second week was perfect (mid 80's). It poured one afternoon and was cloudy the next day. Actually, and I can't believe I'm going to say it, the cloudy day was a welcome reprieve from day after day of perfect blue skies and sunshine. See the photos here.

Last March we bought some bikes, which greatly expanded our opportunities for exploring the city. One of the most fascinating things we explored was this time was Cementerio de la Chacarita. We arrived at a modest, secondary entrance that did not offer a clue to what lay beyond the walls. Yes, walls. The entire place is surrounded by huge walls, like a medieval castle. For some reason, this entrance is identified as Cementerio del Oeste.

We quickly discovered that this cemetery is enormous. Immense. On the order of eight or ten times the size of the touristy Cementerio de la Recoleta. Simply put: It's the largest cemetery in South America.

In the map above (click to enlarge), the Recoleta is outlined in red. Cementerio de la Chacarita is outlined in blue. The yellow dot denotes the location of Casa Palermo. Unlike Recoleta, there were few people here on a Sunday afternoon.

Chacarita was established in 1871 and quickly began accepting victims of the yellow fever epidemic that raged in La Boca and San Telmo. Although less costly to be buried here than in Recoleta, there are many famous Porteños here. Among the most famous is Carlos Gardel, the beloved tango singer, who died in a plane crash in 1935. Each June 26th the area around his burial site is crammed with fans to this day. However, the most famous person buried here was Peron himself (Juan Domingo Peron). In 1987 thieves broke into his vault and severed and took his hands. Some speculate this was done to get his finger prints and access secret Swiss banks accounts. I dunno, seems a bit farfetched to me. Recently, his body was moved to his country home in San Vincente.

One of the fascinating aspects of Cemenerio de la Chacarita is the vast network of underground vaults and niches. There are two sections. One, closer to the part of the cemetery near the main entrance, and seemingly older, has small niches. See next two photos.

Further away from the main entrance is another, larger underground labyrinth, these being on two levels:

Click the photo above to see more detail. This is an extensive underground necropolis, with architecturally interesting access points at ground level. We found a plaque indicating that this was built in 1958.

Of course, the cemetery has blocks and blocks of monumental vaults similar to those found at Recoleta:

We found that vandals had broken into many of these, but the majority are in excellent condition. The "streets" within the cemetery seem to be endless. The following photos is of the main entrance, which we got to see on the way out:

Statistics: 12,000 burial vaults, 100,000 gravesites, 350,000 niches, covering an area of 95 blocks. In addition, there are two contiguous but separate cemeteries: Cementerio Aleman and Cementerio Britanico (We did not get a chance to visit either of these).

Cementerio de la Chacarita is accessible by taking Linea B to the Federico LaCroze station. On the weekends, there is an enormous market in the adjacent park. Larger than any other I have seen in Buenos Aires (at least so far).