Spooky cemetery in Peru

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The oldest cemetery in Peru has become a hit with tourists and locals.

The Presbitero Maestro Cemetery was built between 1805 and 1808 on the former outskirts of Lima and was the first municipal cemetery in Latin America. This impressive and beautiful historical Sanctuary houses the final resting places of many historical important personalities, but is still in use. The neoclassical complex contains the largest collection of 19th century European marble sculptures in Latin America. It’s absolutely worth seeing!

It was cold and dark, and people clutching lanterns in the moonlight gave a spooky cast to Peru’s oldest cemetery, now Lima’s oddball hit with locals and tourists. “It is scary. But we’re into it,” said a teenage girl clinging to her boyfriend as they walked through darkness and silence interrupted only by visitors’ footsteps.
Each group has a guide who entertain visitors with tales about those buried at the Presbitero Matias Maestro Museum-Cemetery, a Peruvian national historical monument.

The cemetery covers an area of 25,000 m². It has 6 magnificent main gates and over 220,000 people found their final resting place at this outstanding burial ground. Although the Presbitero Maestro Cemetery was declared a National Historic Monument in 1972 the sculptures and the impressive mausoleums are threatened by natural aging, air pollution, pressure of the growing population and unfortunately by vandalism. At least the Public Beneficence Society of Lima tries to preserve this jewel of peace with a very tight budget.

Night tours are scheduled with different themes for different crowds: one focuses on love; another on patriotic fervor; still others on presidents; and inevitably one focuses on death itself. “What really brings in the most people is the tour focused on death, in November, and another on love, in February,” says historian Jose Bocanegra, who has the historical details at the ready.

Some visitors are so apprehensive about being in a cemetery that they tiptoe around expecting something worthy of a horror movie. 

When tours started a decade ago they were limited to no more than 40 people; but they have become so popular that groups are now as large as 350 people, mainly young people and tourists, Bocanegra said.

One of the most popular tombs for local visitors is Peruvian poet Jose Santos Chocano, who asked to be buried standing, in a one square meter space. “So his coffin was placed in the niche vertically. And on his tombstone, there are lines from his poem ‘Shipwrecked Life,'” Bocanegra said. “This square meter that I have looked for on Earth will be mine, if a bit late. Dead, in the end, I shall have it. … I only expect now a square meter, where one day they’ll have to bury me, standing,” the poem reads.

It is a cemetery, and it is dark, to be sure. But there is enough light for visitors to stop and get a look at Carrara marble sculptures like the “La Dama de la Mantilla” (Lady in a mantilla) and “El bastón de Hermes” (Hermes’ staff). Bronze works such as “A mother weeping at her son’s tomb” and “A cry of pain” also are on display, steeped in the mood of the location, adorning mausoleums that are often caked in mud and apparently forgotten.

The cemetery, tucked into a corner of Lima’s Barrios Altos district, was named for its designer, the priest Matias Maestro, who also was buried there. Opened in 1808 by Viceroy Fernando Abascal during Spanish colonial rule, the facility is a sort of history of Peru in tombs and crypts. Decorated with a staggering 940 sculptures — some of them from as far away as Italy, by sculptors like Santo Varni, Pietro Costa, Ulderico Tenderini, and Rinaldo Rinaldi, or France’s Jean Louis Barrias and Antonin Marcie.

The success of the tours is a blessing for the facility, providing a source of funding to care for tombs and sculptures that have themselves often seemed on their last legs.

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World Largest Outdoor Swimming Pool – San Alfonso del Mar

If you like doing laps in the swimming pool, you might want to stock up on the energy drinks before diving in to this one. It is more than 1,000 yards long, covers 20 acres, has a 115-foot deep end, and holds 66 million gallons of water.

Chile, home to immense natural beauty from lakes to parks to beaches, can now add another appeal to its two million tourists annually with the Guinness World Record holder of the world’s largest pool, The Crystal Lagoon at the San Alfonso Del Mar Resort.
San Alfonso is located at only 90 kilometers apart from Santiago in Algarrobo’s northern sector, the closer beach spot to the eastern sector of the capital city.

Swimming a length in this, the world’s largest outdoor pool, would mean stroke after stroke for more than three fifths of a mile – that’s 20 Olympic-size swimming pools.
The enormous man-made lagoon is set halfway up the country’s Pacific coast, in the city of Algarrobo, and is filled with 66 million gallons of crystal clear seawater.
It also hold the Guinness record for the world’s deepest – so if you don’t feel like diving 115ft to the bottom, it might be best to bring some spare goggles.
The Crystal Lagoon reportedly took over five years to construct, which totaled over $1.2 billion, and opened to the public in December 2006 and costs over $3 million to maintain annually.
It uses a computer-controlled suction and filtration system to suck water in from the ocean at one end and pump it out at the other, while the sun warms it to 75 degrees – nine degrees higher than the sea.

Chilean biochemist Fernando Fischmann, whose Crystal Lagoons Corporation designed the pool, said advanced engineering meant his company could build “an impressive artificial paradise” even in inhospitable areas. It uses hardly any chemicals.
“As long as we have access to unlimited seawater, we can make it work, and it causes no damage to the ocean.”

For sport lovers, there are sport schools imparting training classes on sailing, kayak, scuba diving, swimming, ocean navigation, golf, tennis and paragliding, and they also will find at their disposal artificially-lit five-a-side soccer courts, volleyball courts and tennis courts, a real statutory soccer field, a last-generation 3D golf simulator and a gym with large windows that enjoy a stimulating overview of the lagoon.
Children have play grounds and entertainment activities organized by child monitors, whereas teenagers have an exclusive space destined for them – the Teen-Pub -, and also SubTerra discotheque, where often music recitals and live shows are featured.
The Beach Club with spa, a tempered beach under a crystal pyramid, open-air Jacuzzis, sauna, beauty parlor and gym; the Blue Spa, the first medical spa in Chile; the cybercafé; the exhibition and cultural activities room; the open-air amphitheater; the Lighthouse Café with icecream parlor and teashop; the sushi Lighthouse; the supermarket and the North Bay pub-restaurant with its own dock and a large terrace along the lagoon’s coastline – where often amusing parties and shows are held – are also part of San Alfonso’s facilities.
To all that, the South Bay development has to be added, where the SubAqua Café stands out for its inner aquarium, the largest in Chile, which holds more that 60 Chilean species that can be appreciated in full magnitude through a 25-meters-long glass surface. A giant 100-meters-long water chute is also located in this zone. This sector will be completed by the South Bay Pub that will have a multiple-level restaurant, a Jacuzzi-bar with a giant screen and a gym.

Along with views of the sea and white sandy beaches, visitors can engage in a myriad of activities from boating to snorkeling.
San Alfonso has created a private world with activities for all family members to spend days full of enjoyment without ever leaving the resort.

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Quito

Quito is Ecuador’s capital, the country’s second largest city and the capital of the province of Pichincha. Nestled in a long narrow valley, Quito is one of South America’s most attractive destinations.

Flanked by the Andes mountain range sandwiched by the western slopes of the Volcano Guagua Pichincha standing at a colossal 4,790 m with canyons on the eastern side the city sits inside a lengthy narrow basin valley forming a setting unparalleled by most cities in South America. It is also the highest capital after La Paz in Bolivia in this continent and combined with its rich architecture of bygone colonial days the scenery and overall effect is simply breathtaking.

On clear days you may also view other snowcapped volcanoes such as Cotopaxi in the far distance adding to this truly unforgettable, impressionable ambiance of a large Ecuadorian city which combines both old and new, more modern sectors of the north which includes the international and national airport as well as the main embassies, businesses, banking services, restaurants, shopping centers, hotels, parks and tourist agencies.

The southern area (view the section on Old Quito) in contrast houses various museums, churches, galleries, cathedrals, colonial buildings, balcony furbished homes and outdoor markets within narrow cobbled streets which helps balance the formulae. For many travelers of a well rounded 4 to 5 day excursion to Quito of the old and new life styles which was sanctioned through the auspices of UNESCO in 1978 who confirmed this latter area of colonial Quito to be a World cultural heritage site.

The Años viejos (stuffed dummy’s) which stand upright are typical around December periods and burned on the last day before new year for good luck, a custom displayed throughout the whole country. See our Holidays and Festivals section. They stand on most street corners but are more prevalent on the Av. Amazonas route especially around Hilton Colón Hotel district.

Good Friday is also a festival in the colonial part of Quito and although colorful, it is a solemn affair. The major festival occurs during the first week of December and is named “Fiestas de Quito” and has many dancing parades, street music and bull fights ending around the 6th of December. Another festival of note occurs in August “Mes de las Artes”, with music, dancing and different cultural events dotted throughout the city.