South America

Today we did our first little food shop and bought breakfast for a couple of days. Nick cannot go for more than a day without muesli, so we just bought some in time to prevent a meltdown.
We decided to do another walking tour from freewalkingtour, since we enjoyed yesterday's so much. This one took us around Recoleta and Retiro, the neighbourhoods where we're staying. Lots of interesting stories about the crazy big mansions in this area! The tour finished at the cemetery of Recoleta, which we knew we wanted to visit. We booked a walking tour for the cemetery too, as we didn't want to end up walking around not knowing what all the tombs were. That third walking tour was the best so far for me - the guide was a historian and she was amazing. She told us so many stories, though the most interesting one was about Eva Peron's body.
When Eva Peron (the first lady in the 1950s) died, she was such an iconic figure that her funeral took 16 days, with people queueing to just see her one last time. The government decided to embalm her body to preserve it for posterity and planned to build a giant memorial, twice the size of the statue of Liberty, where her body would be on display. Alas, the government was toppled by a coup and the new dictator was a strong antiperonista. The memorial was never built and her body was hidden by a military colonel for a couple of years (kept it in his bloody office!).
The dictator was Catholic and so, despite his hatred for the Perons, he couldn't have Eva's corpse being disrespected. He arranged for her to be transported to Italy under a fake name and buried in Milan for over a decade (under that fake name!).
Back in Argentina, the leftist terrorist militia born out of the peronist party decided to make it their mission to find Evita's body. They kidnapped the dictator who had her shipped off, Aramburo, but he didn't give them any information despite being tortured to death.
Only after his death, the government decided it was time to put an end to the crazy search for her body and they admitted to the whole Milan fake-name burial. Ex-president Peron - Eva's widower - was living in exile in Spain at that time, and Eva's dead body was returned to him. He was living with his third wife, who must have loved having the second wife's corpse at home, lol.
Peron ended going back to Argentina and was elected president for a third time, while Eva's body was still in Spain. After just a year of being in power, Peron died and his third wife - who was his vice-president - become president!
The peronist militia was still mad about the fact that Eva's body was in Spain, so they went to the cemetery of Recoleta and kidnapped the corpse of Aramburo, the dictator they had previously tortured and executed! They demanded Evita's body to be brought to Argentina in exchange for the release of Aramburo's corpse.
Peron's third wife, who was in charge, traded one corpse for the other (lol) and Eva's body was finally brought home. It was returned to her family, who had a tomb in Recoleta's cemetery, where Evita's corpse is found today. So mental, you couldn't make this story up!
17k steps later we decided to go for some Italian dinner and then finished the day (and ourselves) with some gelato (Nick, as usual, didn't want any and ended up just eating mine...).Leer más