Cementerio General - Santiago de Chile
First published in 2018
Cementerio General is one of the biggest cemeteries in Latin America. It has nearly 2 million interments and with 85 hectares it has roughly a quarter of the size of Central Park in New York. Some of the dead are buried in beautiful mausoleums, but many others found their rest in multi-level storages as you find them in other Latin American cemeteries too.
I had the chance to visit Cementerio General this March on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, it was a bright and sunny day without any clouds in the sky. Even I was not really late it became obvious pretty soon that the light was much too harsh for this location. So I kept only very few images of the nice buildings or the pathways with the palms and fountains.
Anyhow, I was more attracted by the parts of the cemetery that were in decay. And as color was not a major contributor to those images, I decided to desaturate them and to give them an "old" appearance.
You can find Cementerio General in the Commune of Recoleta. So officially it's not part of Santiago city, but you will not recognize it when you leave. It's easily approachable as there is a metro station right in front of the entrance. Inside the cemetery, you'll find plans showing where you are and where the most prominent places are (nearly all presidents of Chile are buried here for example).
Due to the size, you could spend the whole day and still might have missed some interesting places. So you should consider spending at least 2 hours.
