Water Tanks in Rosario, Argentina

Every roof in Rosario has a water tank. 

These pictures are just a few outside my apartment windows.

Some water tanks are covered by cement blocks and other are just left open. It is summer in Argentina and right now the water comes out of the faucet very warm because it is so hot outside!  It just heats up our water tank, think solar water heater!! 

Let's play, how many water tanks can you find in each picture??

They come in all different sizes and colors.  Some are big and white and look new, some look like they are cement and others you might think are just a barrel sitting on the roof top, but they're not!!

If there is ever an earthquake down here these tanks of water are going to be falling everywhere!

Below, the water tanks are big and white and look new. I maybe could drink the water out of the faucet in that building (maybe).  The picture below on the right, no way,  I couldn't drink the water from that.  Our roof top has a cement wall around our water tank, I doubt it looks like the pretty white ones on top of the building below.   So to be clear about the water, I don't drink the water out of the faucets. Our building maintenance man said there is no filter on the water from our tank and Alan still drinks out of our faucet! He is a very brave man!

I drink this Villa de Sur, Pura y Liviana water. Which probably came out of some other faucet, oh well it makes me feel like it is good water! Thank you Alan for hauling it up 5 flights of stairs every other day!!!

Buenos Aires, "Villa 31"

We were headed into Buenos Aires from the airport with John and Liz to see the city and looked out our window and we saw a Dish satellite antenna hanging right next to the freeway overpass rail! Our driver said it was the Villas! These shacks are right up against the freeway guard rails, almost touching!! I quickly took these pictures and then we were moving too fast to take any more. It was scary!

Police don't even go into this area.  We have seen a very small area like this in Rosario, but this was so big and crazy because it was touching the freeway!!

 The pictures below (I found on the web) were taken along time ago because the housing projects are about 4 stories higher now.  They are right up to the guard rails on this over pass below. They just keep building on top of the old ones and most apartment units only had 2-3 walls with one totally open to the freeway.

"These settlements consist of small houses or shacks made of tin, wood and other scrap material. Generally, the streets are not paved and narrow internal passages connect the different parts. The villas miseria have no sanitation system, though there may be water pipes passing through the settlement. Electric power is sometimes taken directly from the grid using illegal connections, which are perforce accepted by suppliers.

The villas range from small groups of precarious houses to larger, more organised communities with thousands of residents. In rural areas, the houses in the villas miserias might be made of mud and wood. Villas miseria are found around and inside the large cities of Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba and Mendoza, among others. The villas draw people from several backgrounds. Some are local citizens who have fallen from an already precarious economic position. In most cases, a villa miseria is populated by the children and grandchildren of the original settlers, who have been unable to improve their economic status." wikipedia

Talk about slums getting out of hand to the point that police won't go into an area and then it just keeps getting bigger, year after year, it is so sad and scary .

Recoleta Cemetery - Buenos Aires, Argentina

I love cemeteries, but Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires is a city!! It is on 14 acres and has 4,691 above ground vaults.

These pictures just don't capture the beauty of this place!

John is showing us (below) that the casket was open a little bit!!

A lot of them are like little chapels with the family members buried underneath and very steep steps going down to the caskets that are on shelves. Eva Peron is also buried here (Familia Duarte).

The casket above had a white linen placed over it to protect it.

Row after row, isle after isle and the map didn't help to give us direction!

 Some have fallen into disrepair with lots of broken glass and you can just look in and see old caskets

Others have beautiful statues and incredible stained glass windows.

I wish they would charge an entrance fee or hire more guards so they could control the vandalism of these beautiful burial places.

I know where Disneys haunted mansion got some of its' inspiration! It is one of the top cemeteries in the world and well worth a visit.