One beautiful place in Guatemala is Monterrico. Monterrico is on the Pacific coast about 30 miles north of the El Salvador border. Rivers from the highlands flow out and create a huge region of swampy mangroves. The town itself is a laid back vacation town. It's small and caters to visitors who are mostly from Europe and Canada. There are small hotels and bungalows for rent along the black sand beach.





One thing about Guatemala is that there is very little English spoken. You really need to have at least beginner's Spanish. Our cab driver took us to a place called Johnny's Place which seemed to be a haven for gringo tourists. Here is where we met Sender, above. Sender spoke perfect English! The reason? He had grown up in Los Angeles. He and his mom had crossed into the U.S. when he was 3. He lived there til about 18 and then returned to Guatemala. After starting a family he crossed back again to look for work. He had some interesting stories about coyotes - the illegal immigrant smugglers.

Anyway, one of the things you can do in Monterrico is go on a boat tour of the mangroves. We weren't going to do it for fear of mosquitoes, but because Sender spoke English and guaranteed there would be no mosquitoes, we went. Cost - $8 each. BTW, he was right - no mosquitoes during the middle of the day.



Sender guided us gondola style through the swamps. Dean just had to give it a try. Luckily he did not end up in the water. But he did find out just how hard it is to pilot the boat.



Here is a car ferry. Because of the swamps it can be a long way around to drive to the next town south on the coast. Many people opt for the water taxi and these ferries to get across.



This fisherman was fishing for shrimp, but wasn't really having much success.



The mangrove roots grown down from the above. In the dry season the water is primarily brackish. In the wet season all the fresh water from the rivers raises the level of the swamps up several feet and these roots would be under water.



If you read Lonely Planet it will tell you about the nature preserves to visit in Monterrico. Well, let's just say they aren't anything like what you are used to.

First you should know that any of the parks in the country will charge Q10 for locals and then Q40-50 for tourists. Then be aware that you will get no information in English. Everything is in Spanish. Now this makes sense for a Spanish speaking country, but if you are going to charge more money for foreigners the least you could do is provide a paper brochure with some basic information in English (the most universal of travel languages).



Here are some baby sea turtles. This southern area of the Pacific coast still has sea turtle breeding grounds. Hopefully they will survive. The locals eat the eggs and the government cannot enforce laws to stop them. So there seems to be some sort of agreement that they can take so many eggs as long as so many are also saved and given to preservation. The turtles come primarily during the wet season.



The preserve also had some displays of caimans (above) and different kinds of iguanas.



We also got to see some beach front property that was available. You can own property there. A small property, big enough for a small vacation home just a block or so off the main drag, was $60k. A property big enough for a small hotel or restaurant was $100k. If I had it, I would have bought the small property. It would cost about $20k to build a really nice house on it. After all, Guatemala will soon be discovered by other Americans and then it will escalate crazily just like Costa Rica did.

If you visit Monterrico and wish to engage Sender as a guide, he can be found at Johnny's Place or at sensrico76@yahoo.com.

I gave some information about Antigua in my Feb. 13th post. It is the tourist city for Guatemala and is beautiful and quaint. The picture above is the central plaza. The building below is on one side of the park.





This church is along another side of the park.



There are many ruins because the nearby volcano wiped out the town a couple hundred years ago. So many churches and other buildings had to be rebuilt.



One of the city's main pilas (washing fountains).



The volcano that caused all the damage.



More churches.



The mercado is huge. There is produce that is spread out on blankets or in baskets. There was an entire section devoted to artisans and where we bought most of our souvenirs.



Dean was fascinated by how much women could carry on their heads.



This is the bus 'station'. These buses go to all the surrounding towns. The driver's drive like complete idiots because they try to get as many fares as possible and to go as fast as they can. One day we were on the freeway in the mountains (curvy) and a bus blasted by us in a construction zone, saw a fare, and came to a screeching halt in front of us! Last year a bus crashed on the way to Ronnie's village and nine people were killed. You also risk being robbed. The week we were in the village one of the daily commuter buses was held up.



Below is a tut-tut. These little moto-cabs are the cheap taxis around towns.



A picture of a pretty entrance to a hotel courtyard. Many old buildings are converted into cheap hotels. This one was probably about $15/night, but you can find clean ones for as low as $5 if you are willing to share a bathroom.

As I mentioned in my Feb. 13th post, Ronnie has retired to the village of Acatenango and is the only gringo there. The town is in the valley at the bottom of Acatenango volcano. The valley grows coffee for Starbucks primarily.



Ronnie is renting this large house and lives in one room. The corner room with the doors out is now the panaderia (bread bakery) and will also be a small restaurant in the future. Another room is a doctor's office where a pediatrician will visit once a week for the Mayan children. Another doctor is possibly going to share that office and rent a room.



Here is a view in the atrium courtyard of the home after we had added some Valentine decoration.



Luckily there was a fountain because there were quite a few days when the town's water was shut off and we needed to get buckets out of the fountain to flush the toilets.



This is the brand new municipal building in the center of town. Note the half done street at the bottom of the picture.



The villages and towns mostly pave their roads with these bricks instead of using asphalt. Seems pretty time consuming to me, but perhaps they last longer.



A typical street view.



The church is in the center of town across the plaza from the municipal building. This is also the area of the market where people sell their produce, etc.



This is a typical village pila, where the women gather to wash their clothes by hand.



The cemetaries are very colorful.

One of our new Guatemalan friends is Anna. Anna is one incredible woman. Her family has owned their coffee finca (farm) for four generations. Her finca is one of only a handful of certified organic coffee farms in the country. Anna herself is certified as a coffee expert through training at a coffee 'university' in Brazil. Her family had left to live in the city and kinda put the finca on the back burner. Anna has decided to take over the family business. She's the one who has made it an organic farm.

But she has other projects as well. She started a panaderia (bread bakery) out of Ronnie's cultural center. When we arrived they had just started getting customers and baking daily. By the time we left they had opened up the corner room to sell the bread. She also helps women and young entrepreneurs with starting businesses. They are going to start a program to teach business skills and business planning. She will be holding a small contest for the participants to propose their ventures and then she will pick one to mentor to fruition. She's also teaching Mayan women to use their artisan skills for making materials for shoes. I didn't really get to see any of these plans, but I am very interested because I've thought of starting a shoe business myself. She also ships other plants to the U.S. as well. (More on that in another post.) Anna is one busy lady.

The Acatenango valley grows primarily for Starbucks. Starbucks says they have all these standards about workers and growing conditions, but Anna says that it is all bunk. Children are picking the coffee along with their parents. As you saw in yesterday's post, Mayan families like Alvinna's are dirt poor and start the children working at a very young age.

For anyone who has a coffee shop/business who might be interested, Anna is looking to sell directly to shops in the U.S. without the middle man. Contact me and I'll get you her contact information.

Anyway, the above picture shows the coffee plant in flower. The one below shows the red coffee berries, ready for picking.



Here I have a freshly picked coffee berry. When you break the skin there is a thin, fleshy bit over the beans. There are two or three beans in a berry. We tasted it and the fruit is very sweet. I asked if there was something that they used this sweet part for. Anna says that it is stripped from beans during the process and the slough is taken and fed with other organic material to composting worms. This then creates the fertilizer they use for the next crop.



After the berries are picked they are put in these troughs that are filled with water. Bad berries will float to the top and get skimmed off. The good berries fall down the shoots by gravity.



The berries are soaked for a few days so that the red skin/hull can be removed as well as the thin flesh layer.





Anna is standing amidst young coffee seedlings in the nursery section. She is explaining some of the process to us.



Eventually the beans are laid out in the sun to dry out.



This handful is the finished, green bean before roasting. This is how the bean is shipped to the U.S. and other coffee buyers. You can see that there is still a thin skin on it.



These are the 100 pound bags ready to be shipped.

This is Alvinna. She is seven years old and she was one of our waitresses at Ronnie's local comedor. She works because, like so many Mayan children, she has a poor family that cannot afford to send her to school. School requires uniforms, shoes, and supplies. Alvinna has many brothers and sisters, some older and some younger. None have gone to school.



Dean has decided to sponsor Alvinna. We went to see her on our last day in Acatenango and let her know that he was going to buy her the things she needed so she could go to school. She will have to wait until next school year.

There are many, many unwed teen mothers in Guatemala and so families can get quite large. Many live in small, dirt-floored shacks. The women all do their wash by hand in the pilas.




We hope that Alvinna takes full advantage of the opportunity of an education. She will be the first in her family to go school. Ronnie says that a few days later he came home to find her, her father, and four younger siblings waiting outside his door. Her father came to give his thanks and to see if there were possibilities for his other children. Ronnie hopes that he can find other families who will be interested in sponsoring. There are plenty of organizations out there that do such sponsorships, but how much money does the organization take versus getting to the child? With Ronnie you will know that 100% of the money will go to the child.

On our last day in the village we hosted a pinata party. Dean had never experienced a pinata and so he had bought two pinatas and candy to fill them. We went up the hill to where Ronnie is building a house and invited children to come. There were about 100 kids and a bunch of parents.




We started with those that were under 5. They, of course, had no power in their swings to bust the pinata. We did not blindfold this group either. Hector was helping to organize the children as best he could.




There were a few minor injuries and cries as the children swarmed on the candy. That always happens. We did pass out a few little bags to any who were too small or too timid to participate.

We are back in Sacramento but there are still so many more stories to share about our trip. Please check in for the next couple of weeks as I add them.

Meanwhile, look back at the ones I did while I was away. I added some photos to them.