South American Grafitti

One of the things that I picked up on the South American trip is that there is a huge amount of grafitti around. Specially in Sau Paulo it is on everything. On some buildings you stand in awe and try to figure out how it got on walls several floors up from the ground. Grafitti is such an problem that most of the statues and monuments are fenced off with wooden fencing to stop people from drawing grafitti on them.

This was thr first grafitti I saw up close. It was just next to the hotel in Sao Paulo. It looked very informal.

The grafitti above was along a road in Sao Paulo. It was quite a lot of grafitti and very artistically done. Very "comic book" like.

This lot was in Buenos Aires. I saw it the morning I went to see Eveta's grave and looks like typical scribble on the wall grafitti.

Ibirapuera Park - Sao Paulo

On my day of sightseeing in Sao Paulo I stumbled on Ibirapuera Park. At 345 acres (140 ha) or 0.6 sq mi (1.6 km2), Sao Paulo's biggest city park can be compared with Central Park in New York. The park contains two large lakes and paths criss cross throughout. The paths are devided into a walking section and a section for bicycles and is used by hundreds of people every day. There are several monuments, museums and galleries in the park as well as a plant nursery.

Some of the monuments in the park are historic monuments (as below), while others as the one above are newer "art" statues.
There are also huge play areas for the family to hang out in. Unfortunately it was a week day so there were no kids to get a different perspective on the equipment.

Cementerio de la Recoleta

Although my trip to South America was a good one as far as business goes, it wasn't that outstanding for photography. I had a full day in Sao Paulo to do a bit of sightseeing, but my sightseeing in Buenos Aires was sunk by cancelled and delayed flights. This meant that I had about an hour to see something and if there was one thing I wanted to see, it was Eva Peron's grave. So 07:30 the morning after breakfast I headed the 5 blocks down the street from the hotel to see her grave... in the pouring rain. This restricted the amount of pics I could take successfully. And what a bummer that was. I could spend a whole day in the Cementerio de la Recoleta. It is awesome! The fact that there are no conventional graves and only mausoleums makes it a extraordinary photographic subject.

Most of the mausoleums are elaborate marble creations decorated with statues and built in different architectural styles. Its like a city of the dead in there with sections like city blocks, main walkways lined with trees and side alleys filled with mausoleums. It is awesome, or have I said that? I could truely spend the whole day in it with my camera.
The Cemetery includes graves of some of the most influential and important people of Argentina, including several presidents, scientists, and wealthy characters. Internationally, Eva Peron is the best known person buried in this cemetery. Just for those who don't know who she was:

María Eva Duarte de Perón (7 May 1919 - 26 July 1952) was the second wife of President Juan Domingo Peron (1895 - 1974) and served as theFirst Lady of Argintina from 1946 until her death in 1952. Born out of wedlock in rural Argentina she is often referred to as simply Eva Peron. In the eyes of many Argentinians of the time she was somebody like the late Princess Diana. Her story was made more famous internationally through the 1996 movie Evita staring Madonna.

The mausoleum in which Eva Peron last resting place is situated with the many fresh flowers that people still come and put on the door.