To whom would you pray?

If there are two things Argentines have faith in they are futbol and God. This is epitomized by the huge wall size photo of Maradonna in the Boca Team Museum and the 36 meter Jesus that rises out of a rock a Tierra Santa, the worlds only Holy Land themed amusement park.

The Boca museum, which a visited a few weeks back with Jack, is incredible. It truly reveals how important soccer is to Argentines recapping past glory in films, photos, statue, and interactive displays. You can search litterlly every statistic of Boca history, compare the jersey designs (and sponsors) through out the years, and get the low down on current players.

However, the most impressive part is a wall that displays a section for every year that Boca won a significant tournament. For each yeah, of which there were 20 something, there is info about the tournements they played but also three small TV screens, making a line of TV for the length of the wall. In the middle screen are clips from Boca games of that year. The side TV's show clips from Argentine events and world events of the same year. These TV tryptics were completely engrossing. You could simultaneously watch military dictators, WWII battle scenes, and Boca scouring the winning goal. In this display, Boca's goal at some tournament or other was ranked as equal importance to Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, the rise of Peron and Evita, the Gulf War, the Argentine economic crash in 2001. I knew Argentines loved soccer, but this was taking it too far.

After the museum, we took a tour of the stadium and got to stand on the field, visit the lover rooms, and sit at the press table. We learned the secret home team advantages like making the visiting team practice indoors so they then have to change into their cleats and cool down a bit. Most improtant we saw Maradonna's yellow bench. The tour guide kept referring all the things Maradonna would do but we couldn't seem to actually figure out his role on the team except soccer god.

But for a country that takes thier soccer this seriously, just imagine how they view religion. There religious fervor is best expressed in Tierra Santa, the world's only theme park based on religion.

My friend Natalie and I just couldn't resist going. So with cameras in hand we made the pilgrimage up to the holy land, located on the river in the north of the city. We were greeted by camels statues and Argentines dressed in the style of Ancient Rome. When they decided to make this amusement park, they knew they needed to go all the way!

The park is a reconstruction of "Ancient Jerusalem" in the time of Jesus. There are model house, businesses, restuarants, temples, city centers interspersed with groups of statues depicting scenes from the bible, the most memorable of which is Jesus raising a Larazus straight from the land of the living dead. The main building is a model of the temple mount which on the front features the image of the cruxifictions and from the back rises the 36 meter Jesus. Every half hour or so he rises out of the rock to represent the resurrection with Handel's Messiah blaring.

But of course, in our modern day, this theme park cannot be exclusively Christian. Amongst the winding streets you can find a synagogue where men must cover thier heads, a mosque where you must take off your shoes, a model of the wailing wall, and even a few gyspies to read your future. Also statues of Ghandi and Martin Luther time travelled to make an appearance. Finally, there is a recreation of the Creation, based off "liberally translate biblical texts." This show of lights, sounds, and animated creatures, shows the development of the seven days of creation showing only the animals you would expect to see on an African Safari and a very blonde Eve.

Best of all, the ancient abodes with their open air designed featured modern day air conditing which seemed to be placed to have the least effect possible. Obviously the effects of global warming are ignored in this religious institiution as well.

Pictures to come soon.