Del amor y otros demonios

On October 26, 1949, reporter Gabriel García Márquez was sent to the old Santa Clara convent, which was to be demolished to make way for a five-star hotel, to witness the emptying of the burial crypts and to cover the story. The remains of a viceroy of Peru and his secret lover, a bishop, several abbesses, a bachelor of arts, and a marchioness were exhumed. But the real shock came when the third niche of the main altar was opened: a cascade of copper-colored hair, twenty-two meters and eleven centimeters long, belonging to a young girl, spilled out. The name on the tombstone was barely legible: Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles.