Hey everyone...
We're home. Can't believe it's over.... We'll update soon with the last few days on the ship and extra thoughts and such soon, but until then, just wanted to let everyone know to e-mail us at these addresses from now on: sshields_007@yahoo.com, shield41@msu.edu. Also, our new phone numbers are: Sarah- (269)274-4890, Kate- (269)274-5783.
Thanks for reading, everyone, and leaving comments!! It was an amazing adventure, but now it's only the beginning, so stay tuned :-)
-K & S
Friday, May 8, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Guatemala
The last port. The last country. The last adventure....
Guatemala was amazing! But before we got there, this was the country everyone kind of forgot about. It was right around finals, we had already been back to the US (Hawaii), and it was at the end of the voyage. And on top of that, everyone scared the crap out of us before we arrived, saying that it was on its way to being a failed state, the situation was unstable, and that we would most likely be robbed or mugged while there. So this was a port that we all had somewhat lower expectations for. But I think that's why it turned out to be so great- it was ten times better than we could've ever thought it would be!
Two nights before we arrived, one of our fellow students, Eric, gave a fantastic pre-port that told us all about it, showed us what it looked like, and what to do when we get there. We had really no idea what we were going to do, and the night before we arrived, we (the five of us) were invited by John (one of the ship's doctors) and his wife, Sage, to go ziplining with them and their extended family. So, the first morning, after the diplomatic briefing (again, scaring us into basically staying on the ship), we boarded a shuttle to Antigua, which is about an hour and a half away. We slept the whole way, and we were there at around 11 am. The tour company wasn't coming to pick us up until 1:30, so we had some free time to look around. Antigua is a beautiful city! It is paved with cobblestone streets, the buildings are all colorful, and the people are so nice. One of our friends, Jen, came with us, and we ate at a great restaurant and talked for a while. We all walked around the town square and shopped for a little bit, and then went to the trucks to go up the mountain to zipline! These trucks looked like safari vehicles- open air utility trucks with a canvas top- and we drove these the twenty minutes or so to the company's location in the mountains surrounding Antigua. On the same property is a coffee farm, so we saw the SAS trip, and once we had all paid and ready to go, we started our ascent to the top. There were about 17 of us at this point, and we all sat in the scary trucks that drove on very narrow roads, close to the edge of cliffs, up to 6,000 ft where the ziplines were. We got suited up in harnesses (which looked very good on us, if you wanna know), and they gave us a little instruction before we just started going. It was so much fun! We were surrounded by trees and lush greenery on all sides, not to mention we were on top of a mountain! Ziplining was really exhilarating and a little scary, but we all had such a good time! We did 6 regular lines, about 100-200 meters, and then we got to go on the "Canyon Express", which is a 500 meter line from one mountain to the other and then back again. It was awesome!! I was the first to go, and they just pushed me off of the platform and I sailed through the air, looking down at the valley where the town of Antigua stayed tucked away, and the wind was rushing through my ears- I was going so fast. The best part was hearing people come across, especially Emmett, who screamed like a girl and kicked his legs out like a bicycle! It was definitely an experience! We were all full of adrenaline and excited that we just got to do ziplining in Guatemala! We said thank you to the tour guides (they were sooo nice!) and made our way back down the mountain and into Antigua. From there, we had about 3 hours until the shuttle back to the ship was leaving, so we had pizza and walked around. The interesting thing was that everything closed at 8 o'clock or earlier. We were getting ice cream and the shop we were in closed before we were even done, and our plan to go shopping was ruined when the market, and every other shop, closed as well. So we ended up walking around the square, meeting and talking with other SASers who were waiting, and playing funny word games. The shuttle came, and we drove back to the ship, exhausted from the day. On our way, we saw a volcano (I believe it was Fuego) that was erupting. Antigua is surrounded by volcanoes, and some of them are still active. The lava was shooting out of it, and the fire blazed against the contrasting night sky. It was an amazing sight to see!! Back on the ship, we hung out with the girls and Pat, and said goodbye to Joan, who was leaving the next day.
The next morning, our plan was to stand in line and see if we could get tickets to climb Pacaya volcano. Victoria, Stephanie, Amy, and Pat already had tickets, so we got out there at 6:45 to see if there were extra seats on the bus. It turns out we were not the only ones with that plan because we ended up being 4th and 5th in line. We waited and waited, and at 7:15, Kate O. told us that they could only take 4 of us. And since we didn't want to split up, the first three got to go, and we were left on the pier, waving pitifully at the girls and trying to decide what we were going to do. There was another trip leaving at 8:30 that was going on a service visit to Camino Seguro (Safe Passage) in Guatemala City, so we decided we were going to try and get on that one. We went inside, hung out for a while, and then went back out and stood in line- again. After only about ten minutes, though, Kate told us that we could hop on because some people hadn't shown up. Yay! So all of a sudden, we had new plans, and we were on our way to the capital led by one of the professors on the ship, Mark Shadle. When we got there, we were taken to the city dump, in the middle of zone 3, where thousands of people work everyday (they are called huejeros) to pick through the trash. They find anything they can- cardboard, plastic, clothes- and resell it to companies or other people for a minimal amount of money. They even take out old food that's been thrown in there, re-cook it, and sell it to the other workers there. There is a market economy down in the dump, which means these people could dig through the waste and chemicals for 6 hours one day and not make anything, if people aren't buying what they're trying to sell that day. The dump is about 10-12 km long, and we were standing at the edge of it, looking down into a very steep ravine at all of these people walking through garbage, just trying to make a living. We stayed there with our guides and asked a ton of questions, and then we drove to a different zone, at the opposite end of the dump, to see the Camino Seguro facilities. The first building we went to was the gymnasium (where the kids are taught to play basketball, lacrosse, an even break dance!), the pre-school rooms and playground, one of the cafeterias- where the kids are fed most likely their only meal of the day, and some of their offices. The kids were so adorable! We played with them on the playground, and they were fascinated with our cameras, so we took a lot of pictures. After we were done there, we drove to their final facility, which is their main building. This houses the grade school to high school kids, another cafeteria, the mothers' building, and the clinic, which is run by Bayer. The children come after school- about 1:30 or so- and eat lunch, do homework, and take English classes. Then they have time to be kids for the rest of the afternoon before they return home. The mothers' building was a new addition a few years ago, and they have the moms of the kids in the program come in throughout the week to learn English, math, reading and writing, and other things. This enables them to get ahead in life and get a job that allows them to not have to work in the dump. The program works around their schedule, and it gets the family and community involved instead of just the kids. Just recently, actually, the mothers started making jewelry out of material they would find in the dump (magazines, plastic, etc), and people who would come to the building started to notice it and wanted to know if they could buy it. So the moms got together and started a business...all by themselves. They were taught how to run the meetings, keep inventory, balance the accounting part of it, and the business just took off. Now they sell their jewelry to the U.S. and around Guatemala, and they are making more money than they did working in the dump, so most of them don't work more than one or two days a week there anymore. We got to see some of their jewelry, and we all bought A LOT of it. They were so excited! Now that I've told you about the program, let me tell you how it all got started. Hanley Denning, who lived in Maine, was in Guatemala studying Spanish for a few years, and a week before she was supposed to leave, a friend brought her to the dump and showed it to her. At this time, in 1999, the kids were all still working in the dump, some as young as 3 years old, and she felt like she had to do something. So she called her parents back in Maine, told them to sell all of her stuff- car, computer, everything- and with the profits from that she started Safe Passage. At the beginning, there were only about 50 children, and it slowly started to grow. They added the new buildings, and the program started to gain interest and funding. The, in January 2007, Hanley was killed in a car accident in Antigua. Everyone back in the U.S. heard about what she had been trying to do, so that year, the program got millions of dollars in donations and sponsorships, and they were able to add families. Now they have almost 600 kids, which is great because you can actually see that helping the whole community, instead of just one or two kids. I was so glad we got to go and see it, and I hope that we can volunteer for them or with them sometime in the future! After we left Camino Seguro, we drove back to the ship, sleeping the whole 2 hours, and when we got back, it was only 4:30. So we decided to go out to dinner, and Kevin, Amy, and Ellie were getting ready to go out. In Puerto Quetzal (where we were docked), there is nothing to do- it's all farmlands and industrial complexes. We decided to take a cab to the restaurant on the other side of the port area, and we got caught in a nasty rainstorm. We watched the lightning out over the water during dinner...it was pretty cool. Until the power went out at the restaurant. haha. But we still had a great time, and when we got back, we got some homework done and hung out on the ship until we went to sleep.
The next morning (last day), we got up at 6, had a little breakfast, and met for our mountain biking trip. We had two busses, and we left for Antigua at 7. Kate and I (and the rest of the bus) fell asleep on the way there. About 45 minutes into it, we hear our driver yelling and our bus started to swerve and brake really hard. We woke up just in time to see a chicken bus (the really crowded busses that the locals ride in) slam into an 18-wheeler. It turns out that the chicken busses had tried to pass one of our busses, and the semi-truck was in the oncoming lane. So it swerved, trying to avoid a collision, jack-knifed, and the bus ran right into the back end of it. It was crazy! The truck was blocking the entire road, so we just sat and watched all the people on the bus jump out, some bleeding, carrying all of their stuff. Our guide and one of the videographers, Skye Fitzgerald, ran out immediately to try and help, and we gave them our water and any first aid stuff we had on the bus. After about a half-hour, they moved the truck and we were finally able to continue the drive. None of us slept after that, we all just watched the road like a hawk, and we narrowly avoided two more accidents involving chicken busses. Needless to say, we were all very excited to get to Antigua in one piece. We went to a building where they were storing all of the bikes, then found one that fit each of us, grabbed our helmets, and we were off. Antigua is made up of cobblestone streets, and if you've never ridden a bike on them, let me tell you- it's tough! You pedal really hard and only get two feet. We rode through the streets, on highways, to 3 or 4 different villages and towns. It was amazing! We even got to see the oldest church in Guatemala and the place where our guide proposed to his wife! The surrounding areas are lush and green, and the little towns were adorable and tucked into the mountainsides. We were having so much fun!! And then......Kate decided to flip over her handlebars. We were on a dirt path, and I guess she hit a rock or something and went flying. She's okay...she got a huge scrape on her arm, and a few more bruises and cuts all over her left side. But she laughed it off and kept riding. And now she has a great battle wound/souvenir from the last port. haha. So after that, we kept riding, and it was brutal!! We were all huffing and puffing, and we thought our legs were going to fall off! I don't know why we signed up for it, since we all knew we were out of shape being on the ship, but we did, and we were struggling. We went up really steep hills and through hard terrain. But that's what made it really fun! We were all dying together, and it turned out to be a great bonding experience. We were all so happy when we got done! Except none of us could walk! We had a little bit of free time in Antigua after we got done, so a bunch of us went out to lunch and got some last minute shopping done before getting back on the busses. As soon as we got on the busses, we all passed out, and didn't wake up again until we pulled into port. It was about 5 o'clock, and on-ship time is 6, so when we got there, there was gigantically long line! There had to be at least a couple hundred people waiting to get on the ship! But since we were on an SAS trip, we knew we couldn't get dock time, which was nice. We waited in line and saw everyone coming back form their trips, and eventually, we took one last walk up the gangway in time to send postcards and take showers before dinner. Then we all stood out on the back deck and watched as the ship slowly pulled away. There was a lot of hugging and picture-taking because we all knew that the next time we stepped off the ship, it would be in the United States. I can't believe it.
Guatemala quickly became one of our favorite countries...probably because we didn't have any expectations, and probably because it was a TON of fun. We are really glad we got to go there and hope that we can go back one day and bring some of our friends. I know everyone would love it! Stay tuned for an entry about everything that's been going on on the ship since we've been back soon...
Miss and love you!!!!!
K & S
Guatemala was amazing! But before we got there, this was the country everyone kind of forgot about. It was right around finals, we had already been back to the US (Hawaii), and it was at the end of the voyage. And on top of that, everyone scared the crap out of us before we arrived, saying that it was on its way to being a failed state, the situation was unstable, and that we would most likely be robbed or mugged while there. So this was a port that we all had somewhat lower expectations for. But I think that's why it turned out to be so great- it was ten times better than we could've ever thought it would be!
Two nights before we arrived, one of our fellow students, Eric, gave a fantastic pre-port that told us all about it, showed us what it looked like, and what to do when we get there. We had really no idea what we were going to do, and the night before we arrived, we (the five of us) were invited by John (one of the ship's doctors) and his wife, Sage, to go ziplining with them and their extended family. So, the first morning, after the diplomatic briefing (again, scaring us into basically staying on the ship), we boarded a shuttle to Antigua, which is about an hour and a half away. We slept the whole way, and we were there at around 11 am. The tour company wasn't coming to pick us up until 1:30, so we had some free time to look around. Antigua is a beautiful city! It is paved with cobblestone streets, the buildings are all colorful, and the people are so nice. One of our friends, Jen, came with us, and we ate at a great restaurant and talked for a while. We all walked around the town square and shopped for a little bit, and then went to the trucks to go up the mountain to zipline! These trucks looked like safari vehicles- open air utility trucks with a canvas top- and we drove these the twenty minutes or so to the company's location in the mountains surrounding Antigua. On the same property is a coffee farm, so we saw the SAS trip, and once we had all paid and ready to go, we started our ascent to the top. There were about 17 of us at this point, and we all sat in the scary trucks that drove on very narrow roads, close to the edge of cliffs, up to 6,000 ft where the ziplines were. We got suited up in harnesses (which looked very good on us, if you wanna know), and they gave us a little instruction before we just started going. It was so much fun! We were surrounded by trees and lush greenery on all sides, not to mention we were on top of a mountain! Ziplining was really exhilarating and a little scary, but we all had such a good time! We did 6 regular lines, about 100-200 meters, and then we got to go on the "Canyon Express", which is a 500 meter line from one mountain to the other and then back again. It was awesome!! I was the first to go, and they just pushed me off of the platform and I sailed through the air, looking down at the valley where the town of Antigua stayed tucked away, and the wind was rushing through my ears- I was going so fast. The best part was hearing people come across, especially Emmett, who screamed like a girl and kicked his legs out like a bicycle! It was definitely an experience! We were all full of adrenaline and excited that we just got to do ziplining in Guatemala! We said thank you to the tour guides (they were sooo nice!) and made our way back down the mountain and into Antigua. From there, we had about 3 hours until the shuttle back to the ship was leaving, so we had pizza and walked around. The interesting thing was that everything closed at 8 o'clock or earlier. We were getting ice cream and the shop we were in closed before we were even done, and our plan to go shopping was ruined when the market, and every other shop, closed as well. So we ended up walking around the square, meeting and talking with other SASers who were waiting, and playing funny word games. The shuttle came, and we drove back to the ship, exhausted from the day. On our way, we saw a volcano (I believe it was Fuego) that was erupting. Antigua is surrounded by volcanoes, and some of them are still active. The lava was shooting out of it, and the fire blazed against the contrasting night sky. It was an amazing sight to see!! Back on the ship, we hung out with the girls and Pat, and said goodbye to Joan, who was leaving the next day.
The next morning, our plan was to stand in line and see if we could get tickets to climb Pacaya volcano. Victoria, Stephanie, Amy, and Pat already had tickets, so we got out there at 6:45 to see if there were extra seats on the bus. It turns out we were not the only ones with that plan because we ended up being 4th and 5th in line. We waited and waited, and at 7:15, Kate O. told us that they could only take 4 of us. And since we didn't want to split up, the first three got to go, and we were left on the pier, waving pitifully at the girls and trying to decide what we were going to do. There was another trip leaving at 8:30 that was going on a service visit to Camino Seguro (Safe Passage) in Guatemala City, so we decided we were going to try and get on that one. We went inside, hung out for a while, and then went back out and stood in line- again. After only about ten minutes, though, Kate told us that we could hop on because some people hadn't shown up. Yay! So all of a sudden, we had new plans, and we were on our way to the capital led by one of the professors on the ship, Mark Shadle. When we got there, we were taken to the city dump, in the middle of zone 3, where thousands of people work everyday (they are called huejeros) to pick through the trash. They find anything they can- cardboard, plastic, clothes- and resell it to companies or other people for a minimal amount of money. They even take out old food that's been thrown in there, re-cook it, and sell it to the other workers there. There is a market economy down in the dump, which means these people could dig through the waste and chemicals for 6 hours one day and not make anything, if people aren't buying what they're trying to sell that day. The dump is about 10-12 km long, and we were standing at the edge of it, looking down into a very steep ravine at all of these people walking through garbage, just trying to make a living. We stayed there with our guides and asked a ton of questions, and then we drove to a different zone, at the opposite end of the dump, to see the Camino Seguro facilities. The first building we went to was the gymnasium (where the kids are taught to play basketball, lacrosse, an even break dance!), the pre-school rooms and playground, one of the cafeterias- where the kids are fed most likely their only meal of the day, and some of their offices. The kids were so adorable! We played with them on the playground, and they were fascinated with our cameras, so we took a lot of pictures. After we were done there, we drove to their final facility, which is their main building. This houses the grade school to high school kids, another cafeteria, the mothers' building, and the clinic, which is run by Bayer. The children come after school- about 1:30 or so- and eat lunch, do homework, and take English classes. Then they have time to be kids for the rest of the afternoon before they return home. The mothers' building was a new addition a few years ago, and they have the moms of the kids in the program come in throughout the week to learn English, math, reading and writing, and other things. This enables them to get ahead in life and get a job that allows them to not have to work in the dump. The program works around their schedule, and it gets the family and community involved instead of just the kids. Just recently, actually, the mothers started making jewelry out of material they would find in the dump (magazines, plastic, etc), and people who would come to the building started to notice it and wanted to know if they could buy it. So the moms got together and started a business...all by themselves. They were taught how to run the meetings, keep inventory, balance the accounting part of it, and the business just took off. Now they sell their jewelry to the U.S. and around Guatemala, and they are making more money than they did working in the dump, so most of them don't work more than one or two days a week there anymore. We got to see some of their jewelry, and we all bought A LOT of it. They were so excited! Now that I've told you about the program, let me tell you how it all got started. Hanley Denning, who lived in Maine, was in Guatemala studying Spanish for a few years, and a week before she was supposed to leave, a friend brought her to the dump and showed it to her. At this time, in 1999, the kids were all still working in the dump, some as young as 3 years old, and she felt like she had to do something. So she called her parents back in Maine, told them to sell all of her stuff- car, computer, everything- and with the profits from that she started Safe Passage. At the beginning, there were only about 50 children, and it slowly started to grow. They added the new buildings, and the program started to gain interest and funding. The, in January 2007, Hanley was killed in a car accident in Antigua. Everyone back in the U.S. heard about what she had been trying to do, so that year, the program got millions of dollars in donations and sponsorships, and they were able to add families. Now they have almost 600 kids, which is great because you can actually see that helping the whole community, instead of just one or two kids. I was so glad we got to go and see it, and I hope that we can volunteer for them or with them sometime in the future! After we left Camino Seguro, we drove back to the ship, sleeping the whole 2 hours, and when we got back, it was only 4:30. So we decided to go out to dinner, and Kevin, Amy, and Ellie were getting ready to go out. In Puerto Quetzal (where we were docked), there is nothing to do- it's all farmlands and industrial complexes. We decided to take a cab to the restaurant on the other side of the port area, and we got caught in a nasty rainstorm. We watched the lightning out over the water during dinner...it was pretty cool. Until the power went out at the restaurant. haha. But we still had a great time, and when we got back, we got some homework done and hung out on the ship until we went to sleep.
The next morning (last day), we got up at 6, had a little breakfast, and met for our mountain biking trip. We had two busses, and we left for Antigua at 7. Kate and I (and the rest of the bus) fell asleep on the way there. About 45 minutes into it, we hear our driver yelling and our bus started to swerve and brake really hard. We woke up just in time to see a chicken bus (the really crowded busses that the locals ride in) slam into an 18-wheeler. It turns out that the chicken busses had tried to pass one of our busses, and the semi-truck was in the oncoming lane. So it swerved, trying to avoid a collision, jack-knifed, and the bus ran right into the back end of it. It was crazy! The truck was blocking the entire road, so we just sat and watched all the people on the bus jump out, some bleeding, carrying all of their stuff. Our guide and one of the videographers, Skye Fitzgerald, ran out immediately to try and help, and we gave them our water and any first aid stuff we had on the bus. After about a half-hour, they moved the truck and we were finally able to continue the drive. None of us slept after that, we all just watched the road like a hawk, and we narrowly avoided two more accidents involving chicken busses. Needless to say, we were all very excited to get to Antigua in one piece. We went to a building where they were storing all of the bikes, then found one that fit each of us, grabbed our helmets, and we were off. Antigua is made up of cobblestone streets, and if you've never ridden a bike on them, let me tell you- it's tough! You pedal really hard and only get two feet. We rode through the streets, on highways, to 3 or 4 different villages and towns. It was amazing! We even got to see the oldest church in Guatemala and the place where our guide proposed to his wife! The surrounding areas are lush and green, and the little towns were adorable and tucked into the mountainsides. We were having so much fun!! And then......Kate decided to flip over her handlebars. We were on a dirt path, and I guess she hit a rock or something and went flying. She's okay...she got a huge scrape on her arm, and a few more bruises and cuts all over her left side. But she laughed it off and kept riding. And now she has a great battle wound/souvenir from the last port. haha. So after that, we kept riding, and it was brutal!! We were all huffing and puffing, and we thought our legs were going to fall off! I don't know why we signed up for it, since we all knew we were out of shape being on the ship, but we did, and we were struggling. We went up really steep hills and through hard terrain. But that's what made it really fun! We were all dying together, and it turned out to be a great bonding experience. We were all so happy when we got done! Except none of us could walk! We had a little bit of free time in Antigua after we got done, so a bunch of us went out to lunch and got some last minute shopping done before getting back on the busses. As soon as we got on the busses, we all passed out, and didn't wake up again until we pulled into port. It was about 5 o'clock, and on-ship time is 6, so when we got there, there was gigantically long line! There had to be at least a couple hundred people waiting to get on the ship! But since we were on an SAS trip, we knew we couldn't get dock time, which was nice. We waited in line and saw everyone coming back form their trips, and eventually, we took one last walk up the gangway in time to send postcards and take showers before dinner. Then we all stood out on the back deck and watched as the ship slowly pulled away. There was a lot of hugging and picture-taking because we all knew that the next time we stepped off the ship, it would be in the United States. I can't believe it.
Guatemala quickly became one of our favorite countries...probably because we didn't have any expectations, and probably because it was a TON of fun. We are really glad we got to go there and hope that we can go back one day and bring some of our friends. I know everyone would love it! Stay tuned for an entry about everything that's been going on on the ship since we've been back soon...
Miss and love you!!!!!
K & S
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