Back in 2007, Hugo Chávez created a unique time zone, ordering Venezuela's clocks back half an hour, but on Friday his heirs improvised a funeral like no other to stop the clocks and immortalise the comandante eternal.
Dozens of presidents, prime ministers and princes from around the world joined hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at the military academy in Caracas to bid farewell to a leader who simultaneously inspired, enchanted and repelled during his 14-year rule.
They came not to bury but enshrine him, for the funeral was a prelude to an indeterminate period of lying in state before Chávez's body is embalmed and displayed in perpetuity at the Museum of the Revolution.
"We have decided to prepare the body … so that it remains open for eternity for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong," said Nicolás Maduro, the vice-president who was due to be sworn in as president at sunset after the ceremony.
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, left, Venezuela's interim President Nicolas Maduro, second from left, Uruguay's President Jose Mujica, third from left, Bolivia's President Evo Morales, fourth from left, and Mujica's wife, Uruguayan Senator Lucía Topolansky stand next to the flag-draped coffin containing the body of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez. List of more attendees.