Monterrico, Guatemala City - Guatemala

I have to say that before getting off the MVeX I imagined the worst place on Earth. I had been to Costa Rica which is not far so I couldn’t imagine how it got that bad that fast. About 12 of my friends and I rented a beach house in Monterrico... It was the cutest little bungalow right on the beach and it was only $100 a night… divided by 12, insane! Monterrico has black sand beaches from volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes were erupting AS we were there, I knew some SASers who roasted marshmallows over lava, really!!

Day 1

We left the ship after it cleared customs around 1030am and found a cab. This was quite the headache because they were trying to charge us about $140 for one way; that is absolutely insane, it was 20 miles away. I told them that the price they gave was more expensive than NYC and we bargained it down to about $10 a person. We had two drivers in the front, one was 22 one was 19, and they took us to Monterrico. My friend Gabby who was with me speaks fluent Spanish so we were doing pretty well so far.

Side note: Guatemala is known for highway carjackings and robberies. About 2 weeks earlier 11 Michigan students had their bus hijacked and were taken to a remote field, robbed at gun point and then left. I was pretty nervous to be on the highway but it was daylight and well, I had to get there!

On the way to the house the driver pulled over in an abandoned area and they both got out of the car. I looked at Gabby with a FREAKED out face, I know she speaks Spanish but I guess I thought she read Spanish minds also, and she looks at me and says, “This is the part where we get robbed.”

They stood behind the trunk for a bit, where all our stuff was, then gets back in the car and says, “JUST KIDDING!!” Okay, I’m laughing, sort of… ha…ha…
We got to the house and a couple of the others were already there. It was gorgeous, it slept 12 people, had a pool and 3 hammocks on the roof. It was clean and there was a Guatemalan woman there who said she would cook every meal for us for only $10 a day total! Beach house and personal chef? I think so!

We unloaded our stuff and asked the cab driver for one of his CD’s so that we can really divulge ourselves in the culture. We got a Daddy Yankee CD, hahahahaa really surrounding ourself with the culture. We all hung around the pool, went in the ocean and just relaxed for the day. This was our last port so we all wanted to have a really good relaxed time.

Later that night I had to get back to the ship because I was leaving early in the morning on a SAS trip to Guatemala City. Our cab friends came to get Caitlin and I and we got back to the MVeX.

Day 2

Today we head out to Guatemala City. We were going to check out a non-profit organization called “Camino Seguro” or Safe Passage. What the company does is it rescues one child from a family, which is usually around 8 people, and puts them through school from first grade to 12th, no matter how old they are. The reason they do this is because the entire family works in the Guatemala City central dump. If one child is put through school they can get a good enough job to support an entire family with one person.

They parked the bus we were in at the cemetery and we had armed guards surrounding us. We were at the cemetery because it had a great view of the dump, since we couldn’t and shouldn’t go in. We got off and walked towards this cliff, the second I got to the edge I was overwhelmed. I saw vulcher’s swooping low over hundreds of men and women digging through a dump that seemed like the size of Texas. There was so much trash and so many trucks coming into the dump nonstop at an alarming rate. The guide that was with us told us that the people dig day in and day out for glass, plastics and cardboard to sell to recycle companies for money. Around 200 pounds of cardboard can be sold for $5 U.S. He also said that most people die of lung related illnesses and diseases to that degree from the fumes and toxicity of the dump.

The people are destitute and can never escape the life of the dump unless they have a child who can support them, which is where Camino Seguro comes in. Some of the things that they are digging through are hospital waste, hotel waste, dead animals from the zoo (they found and elephant tail once) and dead bodies from the cemetery. As we were standing there the guide pointed out a toxic waste truck that was pulling in. The truck literally backed up right where people were digging, then the men driving opened up about 10 barrels and dumped this hot blue toxic hazardous liquid right where men and women were, I can only imagine what the substance was. I was watching all of this in silence, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, no words can describe the magnitude of it.

The man from Camino Seguro told us that besides the toxicity of the entire dump the people’s biggest threat were dogs and vulchers. He has seen these men and women be attacked by both.
We watched the surroundings for about 30 minutes and then went back to the bus. The next stop was the school in which they take them to.

The school was absolutely beautiful. It was in the middle of the slums and seemed to be almost a sanctuary. The University of Washington had come down several times to donate things such as gardens and supplies and the playground they had even made me jealous! The kids were cute, I am not good with kids, and all the people who worked there seemed really into the cause. The woman who started it was an American woman from Maine who went to Guatemala, saw the dump and immediately sold all her possessions to start the organization immediately, she later died in a car crash but her vision has grown tenfold since.

We went up to the top floor classroom and looked out at the surroundings from the balcony. I saw houses that were barely standing and they were all clumped together. It reminded me of the townships of South Africa. Houses were made out of anything and everything they could find. It was one of the most impoverished places I had seen. There were so many homes in such a small area it seemed as though they were squeezing hundreds of people into a garage. I saw a wall of one house made out of the tarp of a Twister game, seriously. There were bags and bags of soda cans on top of some of the houses and the guide said they collected them and are waiting for the price of cans to go up so they can sell them for some money.

The last stop was with the mothers of the children. They were all so happy and greatful for the Camino Seguro program. They told us they created little businesses for themselves by making jewelry from items in the dump, I bought a bracelet from them and I love it!

After and exhausting and emotional day I went back to the MVeX, called my cab man and got back to the beach house. While I was waiting for the cab to get there a storm rolled in and took about .5 seconds to start torrential down pouring and the wind was blowing at about 300 mph. I wrapped a shirt around my head and sat in a corner until my man got there.

Back at the house it was a lot of what was happening before… partying, hanging out, lots of laughs, good conversation, celebrations of friendship and just overall good times.

Day 3

We all woke up and got our bathing suits on. We had to be back at the MVeX around 6pm so we had breakfast made by the cook and just relaxed. The waves in the ocean were SO big and after about 10 minutes I had to get out because I was exhausted from staying afloat. We swam in the pool for most of the day and had some of the biggest laughs yet. It was a bitter sweet day because we were happy to be together but sad it was the last port and to be leaving soon.
We got a can cab and squeezed about 20 people into it.

We got back to the MVeX in one piece and went up to the 7th deck. SAS was giving us a BBQ! After I ate I noticed they were undoing the lines from the docks and our pilot boat was guiding us out. I went to the stern of the ship and watched us leave the last SAS port. I’m not going to lie, I got a little emotional but I still had quite a few days left. As I saw the lights get further and further away I went down to my cabin for a good night’s sleep.