Alice had been told, on the plane over, that there was somewhere in the city that she must visit. I’d never heard of it – Tierra Santa, a religious theme park. But it sounded like the kitschest thing you could ever do so off we went, on the bus – having saved all our change for days beforehand.
My jaw hung open all day. Miles and miles of polystyrene camels and little mud houses and palm trees and biblical figures stretch over a vast site. First of all we entered a polystyrene mound to watch the Nativity – “the biggest animated nativity in the world” said the brochure. Surely it’s the only one? Laser angels whizzed above the stage, the stars came out and polystyrene wise men approached the manger and offered goods to a polystyrene Virgin Mary, all wreathed in clouds of dry ice and flashing coloured lights. Thank god the baby didn’t move. That might have brought on hysteria. We watched another show, the Creation, which was even more hilarious than the Nativity. A hippo, rhinocerous, giraffe, gorilla and elephant with moving ears trundled on tracks across the stage. A naked Adam and Eve appeared briefly in the green smoke to join them. We were almost sobbing with laughter. Best of all was the Resurrection. We knew something was happening in the park when the crowds began to move towards a tiered seating arena. What’s going on? I asked a man selling not very biblical sweets and soft drinks from a kiosk. Oh, the Resurrection, he replied. And how often does that happen? I asked. Five times daily he replied, trying desperately hard not to crack a secular smile. To the strains of Handel’s Messiah and Carmina Burana, a huge polystyrene figure of the man himself, 18 metres tall, emerged from a plastic rock into the sky. With 36 mechanical movements, as boasted by the brochure, the large Jesus blessed the crowd, turning to face all sides of the auditorium and then slowly slid back into his rock.
Between shows and spectacles we wandered around – plastic scenes of Jesus’ life and work were spread over the place. But there was a wailing wall, a Mosque and homages to Gandhi, Mother Theresa and Martin Luther as well. It was like a outdoors waxwork museum, only shoddier. The figures – men and women in flowing robes, donkeys, cows and rabbits – were all hollow apart from the few real workers who were dressed just like the figures though some had added a Yasser Arafat Arab scarf. There was even a real Jesus with long straight hair who fell on his knees in front of the crowds and blessed the poor.
No stone was left unturned in the quest to entertain religiously. You could have your photo taken in the 3-d version of a seaside cardboard cut-out, as a cruel Jesus killing soldier, a serving maid or (strangely, since there seem to be no black people in Argentina) an African merchant. There was a food court, of course, with not very biblical hot dog stands and a Middle Eastern place serving falafel and tabbouleh and Greek salad. A potter threw pots on a wheel and there were several souvenir stalls with nasty Christian tat. It was a right Roman muddle.
Afterwards we crossed the busy road in front of the park to the edge of the Rio Plata. On a warm Sunday evening there were families strolling along the promenade and the heady smell of meat grilling in one of many little food stands. There was a long pier over the water with fishermen dangling their lines into the murky brown water. I asked one whether you could eat the fish caught. Yes he replied – for us this is a sport but for others it’s a necessity.
Back to the real earth from the ‘sacred’ with a bump.
My jaw hung open all day. Miles and miles of polystyrene camels and little mud houses and palm trees and biblical figures stretch over a vast site. First of all we entered a polystyrene mound to watch the Nativity – “the biggest animated nativity in the world” said the brochure. Surely it’s the only one? Laser angels whizzed above the stage, the stars came out and polystyrene wise men approached the manger and offered goods to a polystyrene Virgin Mary, all wreathed in clouds of dry ice and flashing coloured lights. Thank god the baby didn’t move. That might have brought on hysteria. We watched another show, the Creation, which was even more hilarious than the Nativity. A hippo, rhinocerous, giraffe, gorilla and elephant with moving ears trundled on tracks across the stage. A naked Adam and Eve appeared briefly in the green smoke to join them. We were almost sobbing with laughter. Best of all was the Resurrection. We knew something was happening in the park when the crowds began to move towards a tiered seating arena. What’s going on? I asked a man selling not very biblical sweets and soft drinks from a kiosk. Oh, the Resurrection, he replied. And how often does that happen? I asked. Five times daily he replied, trying desperately hard not to crack a secular smile. To the strains of Handel’s Messiah and Carmina Burana, a huge polystyrene figure of the man himself, 18 metres tall, emerged from a plastic rock into the sky. With 36 mechanical movements, as boasted by the brochure, the large Jesus blessed the crowd, turning to face all sides of the auditorium and then slowly slid back into his rock.
Between shows and spectacles we wandered around – plastic scenes of Jesus’ life and work were spread over the place. But there was a wailing wall, a Mosque and homages to Gandhi, Mother Theresa and Martin Luther as well. It was like a outdoors waxwork museum, only shoddier. The figures – men and women in flowing robes, donkeys, cows and rabbits – were all hollow apart from the few real workers who were dressed just like the figures though some had added a Yasser Arafat Arab scarf. There was even a real Jesus with long straight hair who fell on his knees in front of the crowds and blessed the poor.
No stone was left unturned in the quest to entertain religiously. You could have your photo taken in the 3-d version of a seaside cardboard cut-out, as a cruel Jesus killing soldier, a serving maid or (strangely, since there seem to be no black people in Argentina) an African merchant. There was a food court, of course, with not very biblical hot dog stands and a Middle Eastern place serving falafel and tabbouleh and Greek salad. A potter threw pots on a wheel and there were several souvenir stalls with nasty Christian tat. It was a right Roman muddle.
Afterwards we crossed the busy road in front of the park to the edge of the Rio Plata. On a warm Sunday evening there were families strolling along the promenade and the heady smell of meat grilling in one of many little food stands. There was a long pier over the water with fishermen dangling their lines into the murky brown water. I asked one whether you could eat the fish caught. Yes he replied – for us this is a sport but for others it’s a necessity.
Back to the real earth from the ‘sacred’ with a bump.
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