Don't Cry for Me if You Can´t Find My Tomb

Want to find Evita’s tomb? The advice is to follow the crowds. Trouble is, the crowds are following the advice. Catch 22. Nobody can find the tomb.

We’re in no hurry to join the throng of necro-voyeurs. I would rather keep my distance, delve into the nether reaches, the hidden corners, be intrigued by the architecture of this diminutive city. This necropolis. The narrow streets of mausolea, the stairways that lead down into an underworld, the black marble slabs of sarcophagi that reflect sky and cross. The Franco ornate scrolled gates that guard the descent into the earth’s bowels. The resting places for all those whose names grace any and every Argentine town street. Sarmiento and Lavalle, Yrigoyen and Mitré, the ranked armies of liberators and administrators. The montage mouldings to the great and the good, demonstrations of their civic duty and Christian piety. The angel tended fallen romantics. Sculptured exhibitionism. The selections of padlocks and cobwebs, the ornaments of brassware, the aerosols of air freshener.
Inevitably we stumble upon the throng. One enterprising party have had the foresight to purchase the cemetery map; they navigate in the correct direction, but walk right past, re-orientate and backtrack. I can see their confusion; they’re looking for the plaque that tells them they’ve found their trove: Sra. Eva Peron. They’ve found the shrine, only they don’t yet realise it, for she lies in the vault and under the inscription of ‘Duarte y familia‘.

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Still Sleeping on Airport Floors

Remember that sleepy provincial airport and it's puritanical curfew? Arriving back on the last Parisian flight, to find the shutters down and the last bus departed long before the witching hour? Left to the avaracious mercies of an airport taxi, no coffee and the truism that the first and last days of a trip are the most expensive?

Now, there's a second floor and a high rise car park, charges for drop-off, and all-night coffee. Even a Night Bus service. All of which encourages us to sit out a night to catch the red-eye to Amsterdam and a convoluted itinerary of arrangements and sleep deprivation that deposited us back in Buenos Aires two nights and one day later. All to make a considerable saving. The cheapskates ride again.

Alternative transport may be required

These enlightened advances in pocket tucks and penny pinching come with a cost. To discourage rough sleepers, the management test the fire alarms incessantly, floor polishers patrol the terrazzo and police survey passports. In spite of these incentives to purchase an overpriced hotel room, there are huddles of slumbering backpackers behind corrals of trolleys, grannies nursing slow-drunk lattes and one snoring gent who's donned his PJs and sprawls like a beached whale, around which the early morning arrivals flow. We commandeer one of only two benches that have lost their armrests, and defend them against allcomers. There's no sleep.

Thirty six hours later, my body is in Argentina, but my mind is four time zones and two seasons in arrears. Not unlike our bags. We're gazing on a fast-emptying baggage carousel, the same forlorn vacant plastic bag coming around yet again. I'm not surprised; there were the auguries. The carrier who forgot to book our final leg; the waystation that is São Paulo's Guarulhos International; waiting in a two-hour queue for a boarding card; the flight not materialising on the departures board. We've played the slots, got four fruits on the puggie, but the bandit doesn't pay out.

Thirty further hours later and the doorbell rings, revealing a courier with a jackpot of two black bags. A collection of bicycle comestibles. Sprockets and chains, leather saddle and bar tape, toothpaste and clean knickers.

Time to build a bike. Time to start a trip.

 

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