Catherine Price by 101 Places Not to See Before You Die

kids’ blood tested, and the results confirmed their fears: more than 190 of the students had lead poisoning.
    You’d think that all this—the collapses, the Superfund site, the lead-poisoned children—would be enough to make people move on their own. But when the federal government launched its buyout of Picher in 2006, motivated by a report showing that an even more substantial area of the town was at risk of collapse, a surprising number of residents refused to leave.
    But fate had it in for Picher. On May 10, 2008, a devastating tornado hit the town, killing at least six people and destroying about half of Picher’s remaining homes. It was the last straw. Now devoid of residents, Picher’s only remaining attractions are its dilapidated buildings, its infamous orange creek, and a swamp filled with floating tires.

Chapter 51 Tierra Santa Theme Park
    Y ou’re in Argentina, standing in what looks like an ancient town square. Around you are donkeys, sheep, and several dozen identical bearded men engaging in a variety of unpleasant activities. One is being beaten. Another is touching a leper. Another bears an enormous cross. You reach out to touch one, but he doesn’t respond. His skin is cold and hard. At that moment, a six-story Jesus rises out of a fake mountain. He turns his hands toward the sky just as a low-flying 747 threatens to clip off the top of his head. The palm trees begin to emit Handel’s Messiah . In the background, you hear the disembodied screams of children.
    No, it’s not a bad dream. It’s Tierra Santa in Buenos Aires, one of the world’s most popular theme parks devoted to the Holy Land. Located next to a family-friendly water park and a major airport, it boasts one of the only crucifixes to be backed by a waterslide.
    Since the park was designed by a renowned plastic artist, the majority of its animals aren’t alive. Neither are the palm trees, the beggars, or, for that matter, the whores. (The belly dancers are a different story.) This abundance of plastic will become especially noticeable when you are ushered into the park’s first exhibit, El Pesebre, in which robotic plastic figurines act out the nativity in what’s billed as “the world’s largest manger.” Occasionally technical difficulties delay Jesus’s birth, but since Mary goes into labor approximately once every half hour, it’s never long before the next performance.
    After welcoming the son of God into the world, you’ll be set free to explore the rest of the park. A good first stop would be Creation—a laser show, religious lesson, and zoo exhibit rolled into one. In the beginning there is darkness, but it’s soon broken by a green light that bursts through a pinhole, dancing and shimmering as a deep, Godly voice booms in Spanish. Thunder crashes, dry land is formed, and before you know what day it is, the world’s first animals appear, rolling in on jerky wooden platforms with a sense of gravitas reminiscent of a high school play. A giraffe, an elephant, an animatronic gorilla. The show ends with the creation of Adam and Eve.
    The park’s food stands offer biblical favorites like empanadas and chicken shawarma, but if you’re hoping for a last supper, you’ll have to settle for a plastic reenactment—it’s one of the park’s thirty-seven exhibits dedicated to important events in the Bible. (Some of the titles— Veronica Washes Jesus’s Face, Jesus Falls for a Third Time—make you wonder if they shouldn’t have quit while they were ahead.) The park also includes a small temple, mosque, and, for reasons that are not entirely clear, an exhibit about Mahatma Gandhi.

    The Resurrection
    Roberto Ettore/Wikipedia Commons
    But Tierra Santa’s pièce de résistance is, of course, the resurrection—an attraction that, depending on your religious beliefs, can be breathtaking, sacrilegious, or just plain weird. Once every hour, park employees begin staring and pointing at the top of Crucifixion Mountain. As a crowd