Seeing the Sights

After departing from Luz, we went to a Burger King for lunch. Forgetting the change in currency from dollars to quetzales (about 7 quetzales are equivalent to a dollar), I was puzzled as I looked at the menu which had a whopper at 21.00. I thought to myself, "$21 for a whopper!?!?! That is ridiculous!". But then I realized the change in currency. After having lunch, we went to get some oil at a gas station which overlooked a deep gorge which was home to "squatters". The squatters illegally move into the gorges in the city from their life in the country in hope of a better life. Many of their homes are made of pieces of scrap metal and almost all of them had no source of clean water. The strange thing is that the Guatemalan government provides the squatters with electricity and basically anyone who can find land to build a house is allowed to. Afterwards we went to the infamous "dump" of Guatemala City. In order to avoid getting attacked by the vultures who scavenge for scraps in the dump, we observed from a cemetery which was high above the dump. I was surprised we could fit our bus through the narrow streets of the cemetery, but we somehow managed. The cemetery reminded me of a grocery store in the sense that there were these huge aisles of walls that housed coffins or urns. There were some too high to reach so there were ladders to help them. As we walked towards the edge of the cemetery, there was a horrible stench and tons of flies bombarding us. Looking over the scene, we could see vultures in the trees above  us and even on graves. Many trucks would pull in and unload trash and in the distance we could see a man scavenging and fighting off a pack of vultures to get some scraps. After seeing the dump, we decided to visit some more famous sites.