It's a Wrap: Touring Buenos Aires

Soccer mural in the La Boca neighborhood of Buenos Aires

Excitement was in the air on our flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires. We were off to meet the rest of our group and start the official part of the "Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the Chilean Fjords" trip. (Easter Island was a pre-trip add-on.)  But I'm not talking about our excitement. The flight was filled with soccer fans heading to the finals of the 2024 Copa Libertadores, the premier South American club soccer tournament. 

The match was between two Brazilian soccer teams -- Atletico Minerio and Botafogo, with the former having a big fan base on our flight. As the plane landed, cries of "Galo" broke out. Their enthusiasm was infectious, so I joined in despite the fact that I had no idea what the word meant or why they were yelling it. It turns out that they were supporters of Atletico, whose mascot is a rooster. "Galo" means rooster in Spanish, so there you have it. I know this might seem all a bit random (what's new?), but it set an enthusiastic mood for the rest of our adventure. Sadly, Atletica lost the final match. 

While being with these soccer fans was a fun intro to Buenos Aires, it is the story of Eva Peron (Evita) that will stay with me. We learned about Evita's life -- and death -- on our second stop in the capital city at the end of our trip. Evita's body is entombed in her family's mausoleum at the Recoleta Cemetery. Although she has been dead for more than 70 years, people still leave flowers at her grave daily. Perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise given that Argentina ran out of flowers during the period immediately following her death. I'm talking no flowers for sale in the entire country. Wow. People today still use Evita as a benchmark against which behavior should be measured. Apparently the words "If Eva were alive, she'd [insert appropriate action]" are still frequently heard. It's hard to be held to the standards of an idol. 

Many of us had seen the musical "Evita" and knew the broad outline of her life story. She grew up poor. She became an actress. She met Juan Peron when working at a disaster relief benefit following an earthquake. Despite a 24 year age difference, they fell in love and married. Three years later, Peron became President and Eva the most popular first lady of all time.

Eva was an activist during her tenure as first lady. She is given significant credit for Argentine women obtaining the right to vote in 1947. She founded the Peron Female Party two years later in hopes of getting women more politically engaged. She also founded the Eva Peron Foundation, an organization whose mission was to help the impoverished of the country. Its initiatives ranged from providing scholarships to gifted children to donating sewing machines to women to building schools and houses. At one point the Foundation employed more than 1400 workers. She was a true powerhouse.

While this is all interesting, it doesn't compare to what happened to Evita's body after she succumbed to cervical cancer at the age of 33. More than three years after her death, the embalming process had not yet been completed. It had to be perfect. This delay meant that Evita's body had not yet been buried when Peron was overthrown by General Pedro Aramburu. So deep was Aramburu and his followers' hatred of Peron that uttering the mere names "Peron" or "Evita" was forbidden. Fearing that Peron supporters would whisk Evita's body away to protect it, Aramburu's henchmen kidnapped the corpse. It would be more than 20 years before her remains were buried in their final resting place. 

Evita mural in Buenos Aires 

Originally, Aramburu had talked of burning Evita's body to ensure it could never be returned. But Aramburu's commanders were Catholic and, despite their deep rancor against the Perons, believed Evita deserved a proper burial at some point in the future. But that was complicated. What to do with her body until then? At first, her corpse was housed in a van and moved around the city. But once word got out -- as it inevitably did -- where Evita's body could likely be found, candles and flowers would promptly appear, angering the regime even more. Eventually, the body was entrusted to Eduardo Aroncibia, one of the original kidnappers, to hide. He agreed to never tell anyone the whereabouts of Evita's corpse. 

That left Aroncibia with the dilemma of finding a safe place to store the body and keep an eye on it. He decided to put the former First Lady's corpse in his attic. He couldn't tell his pregnant wife what was happening for fear of her telling others. Instead, he ordered her to never enter the space. Of course this made her curious about what the big secret was. One night when Aroncibia was out, she climbed the steps to the attic to check it out. Aroncibia came home and, thinking either a Peronista or a regular old intruder was in the house, shot and killed her. Yikes. 

The "Pink House" is similar to the US Capitol. 
Evita gave her famous address from this balcony.

The story gets even weirder from there, with allegations of at least one "gentleman" who had custody of the body committing if not necrophilia, other sexual actvities in the vicinity of her body. It wasn't until after Juan Peron's death -- 20+ years after Evita lost her battle with cancer -- that her body received a proper burial in Buenos Aires. To read fuller accounts of the journey Evita's body took before finding its final resting place, click here and here. 

And with that, I've reached the end of my final post covering the highlights of this wonderful adventure. It's a good thing, too, because Sarasota's arts season is about to officially get underway. It's going to be busy! Happy and healthy 2025 to all!