I´ve visited a few cemeteries but this is the first one where I actually saw what looked like coffin-spaces stacked on top of one another. Here´s what it looked like.
I guess the design of such structures was driven more by economic constraints of the deceased´s family, rather than aesthetics, since once you moved past these multistoried coffins, there was a whole another section with palatial coffin spaces - some families even had entire temples dedicated to their lineage.
This being Punta Arenas, it was windy and cold as ever; but it was bright and sunny, even at 6pm (there´s almost 18 hours of sunlight in the summer).
It felt strange to walk through the cemetery. One felt a rather comfortable distance between those under the ground and those above. It was a comfortable distance but it was still rather uncomfortable to be feeling that comfortable, if you know what I mean. Several spaces had photos, memorabilia (one had a wireless microphone and toy models of 4 muscle cars right next to a nativity scene and a photo of the deceased, all encased behind a glass door) and flowers - both natural and artificial.
Wildflowers grew in delicate abandon over the graves and fluttered in the cold breeze. Somewhere in the distance a Church bell rang to announce the time - 6pm. You could hear the waves of the beach also lapping nearby. It was surreal. One couldn´t help but wonder at how time passes and how it takes us in its sway. Wildflowers and weeds take birth and nourishment from our ashes and we complete the cycle by taking birth and cultivating flowers.
If one views death as the cessation of life and of all we know and experience -- rather than the continuation of our existence (albeit in a different form) -- visiting cemeteries can have a rather unsettling effect. (I guess it can have an unsettling effect regardless of how one views death...).
It makes you more attuned to life, more in touch with what matters and what doesn´t. Case in point: we did groceries right after the cemetery visit and the cashier forgot to give me $10 change back. She closed our sale and we had barely walked back from the register when we realized that we were short $10. We communicated to her in broken Spanish that she didn´t give me the $10 back and it took her and her supervisor about 20 minutes to ring up the entire register and tally up the totals with the money in her cash box before finally concluding that she had indeed forgotten to give me the $10 change. During the process, I couldn´t help but wonder at the futility of it all. $10! I started to wonder why I had asked for it in the first place. Over the long run...$10...really? And all those bills and calculators and registers ringing...what for?
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