Monday 21 August 2006
As today was the Dia de San Martin (well, today was the day off for it, anyway, the actual day was last Thursday) I figured I'd put up a picture of his tomb. Argentines seem awfully fixated on death, after all, and celebrate the deathdays of their heroes instead of the birthdays or other important dates.
San Martin was a national hero who helped liberate the country from Spain, by the way.
What's really funny, I think, is that when he died he was living in France, and so his body had to be shipped from there. In a coffin, obviously. Along the way it stopped in a Uruguay, I believe, where they honored him with another coffin. When he got back to Argentina, of course they had to add their own coffin. So, now he is inside three different coffins, each larger than the first. This makes for a very large national hero, and he didn't fit inside this tomb any more! They still put him in (in the big brown base, not the black thing on top) but they had to put him at an angle. So, he's not standing, nor is he lying down, he's kind of reclining inside there.
San Martin was a national hero who helped liberate the country from Spain, by the way.
What's really funny, I think, is that when he died he was living in France, and so his body had to be shipped from there. In a coffin, obviously. Along the way it stopped in a Uruguay, I believe, where they honored him with another coffin. When he got back to Argentina, of course they had to add their own coffin. So, now he is inside three different coffins, each larger than the first. This makes for a very large national hero, and he didn't fit inside this tomb any more! They still put him in (in the big brown base, not the black thing on top) but they had to put him at an angle. So, he's not standing, nor is he lying down, he's kind of reclining inside there.
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