Guatemala—Lava Flow and Riding Shotgun for Camino Seguro

Ho-LAH, Mu-cha-cha-chas/chos!

Welcome to Guatemala (pronounced 危地馬拉 in China, in case you're wondering, and I know you were)! I'd been waiting for that demanding, olympian sport, pool. So when we docked in the grotty parking space called Puerto Quetzal, Skye and I had to negotiate a taxi to the nearby village of San Jose. Some things had changed in the three years since I'd been in the country. One was, in the title of the John Sayles movie, Men With Guns. Before only the banks had armed guards. But now, even in this skinny ciudad, not just the ATMs, but almost every store has armed guards carrying butt-less shotguns. For obvious reasons, I'm not showing you the pics of these hired guns, but their presence was unnerving.

Within five minutes of finding our broke-ass pool parlor—which was perfect, especially after I fetched some Gallo chicken beer from a tienda freezer across the street—the armed tourist police in their yellow safety vests were stationed outside the door, quietly looking out for us. Here's a fuzzy shot of a fuzzy place, as Skye and I played the two owners in, appropriately, 8-ball:



A quick couple of steps around town:





Beneath the jumpiness of a poor, armed nation is the igneous push of Guatemala's active volcanoes. Most tourists head directly to the relative shango-ri-la of Antigua, where you can see two volcanoes easily: Fuego (Fire) and Agua (Water). Let's take a drive.

Don't pay too much attention to the mock-yuppie burbs:



This oxymoronic sign in small stores always cracks me up:



Before my Quest for Fire, there is always one for mi old amigos, perros vagros:



In the distance, you can see Fuego, spouting steam:



Let me move you closer:



We're going to hike up another active volcano:



Across the valley you can make out Fuego and another volcanco:





If you're feeling tired, you can buy a ride from an equally tired horse:





The trail quickly gets steep:



There's the familiar family corn plot in Mayan style:



Can you see the thermal plant that generates electricity (it has a green roof)?:



Out in the valley you can see the lava deposited from the last big flow in the 1990's:



Here's the set of peaks where the lava is still flowing:







To get closer we first need to go down this scree-field. The best way to do this, with a pack on your back, is to take great leaps, one foot forward, while sitting back—the way you would snow ski deep, new powder:



Good job! I'm waiting for you, ready to lead you on the trail to molten lava:



We'll be walking over light, sharp volcanic rock: don't slip, or you'll get cut!:





Can you see the red-orange line of lava flowing down the mountain in the distance?:



Let's get closer. When your shoes begin to melt, you're close enough!:









Now let's venture into the danger zones of Guatemala City. We're moving into a world of poverty, gangs and the corporations that exploit them, including:





Parts of the city are marked by ancient aqueducts:



I continue to photograph my fetishes: doors and lazy doggies:



We're headed for a very special destination: the largest, and most toxic, dump in Central America, where children break glass to put on the tops of the high walls that protect the ritziest, gated communities:



To view the scale of the dump, we need to approach through and older cemetery:





Okay, let's get out of the bus and walk to the cliff face. The vultures huddled in the trees—so toxic from garbage that eating one could cause death—are a sign we're very close:



We're now standing on a cliff, looking down hundreds of feet to the growing nightmare that is the dump. Can you see how this 17-km stretch is being filled in toward ground level on the left, but is still deep below?:







Can you make out the ant-sized people working inside the dump? Some live rough in the dump, some squeezed into the houses in the distance:





Bull-dozers layer the trash, as people scramble to gather things to sell on the cheap to recyclers:



Here are items gathered to sell to recyclers:



However, enormous methane fires and explosions still occur; an especially bad one arrived in 2005. Here's one back door to the dump:



The trash spills over nearby walls:





Families who live nearby and work in the dump often hoard items for recycling on top of their roof, waiting for prices to go higher:











Smack dab in the middle of this nightmare is an amazing and workable program, Camino Seguro (Safe Passage). Visit their website:

http://www.safepassage.org/

This rescue op began with a single teacher from Maine, who happened to visit the dump, and felt it was unacceptable that children would grow up there, inhabiting this hopeless and toxic world. She sold her personal goods and moved there to begin to move children out of the dump, helping their families. When she was killed in a tragic accident commuting, others took over. There is now a facility in the midst of this wasteland that has become an oasis. Take a look:





Volunteers from all over America and the world volunteer time and energy. For example, the architecture program at the University of Washington has already started the landscaping:







Inside, there's a school, playground, health facility and cafeteria:































Here's Brooks, a volunteer from Michigan, in the cafeteria:



I'll be trying to raise money for this program by selling my fancy-smancy coloring books on the net. If you're interested, you can email them for info to start a friends group for their program wherever you live.

"I'm like a ghost
some people can't see.
Other just drive by and stare.
A shadow that drifts on the side of the rode.
It's like I'm just not even there."

"Wander This World," Jonny Lang

Humans and animals have often fouled their own nest, but slowly waste has found its way out of the home and office and out of sight. How many of ye fellow Oregonians, par exemplo, have visited the massive dump outside Arlington, that will, like the Hanford Nuclear ranch, eventually leach into the Columbia. Imagine a situation desperate enough, like Guatemala City, Phnom Penh or so many other cities, where people, with children, actually seek the dump as place of work and default "home." Even though we have children in the U.S. living in trailers and motels their parents have turned into portable meth labs, there is a level of despair centered in these dumps around the world that seems increasingly unacceptable to me. What to do? Start with Safe Passage, but also visit your own dump and see what's up. I remember being a paper boy who earned one wee dollar every Wed. afternoon delivering a "shopper" guide to the poorest part of my small, Iowa town. Phil Butler had a cardboard and tin shack in the dump with his wife, and he liked to sit atop the piles of salvage in his rocking chair and hurl insults my way. We cast out people along with all our thangs....