Guayaquil City Cemetery

Here's one part of Guayaquil that remains for the most part unexplored: the city cemetery.

Below is a short intro from the Guayaquil en un minuto series.

The Guy In Charge explains that there are presidents, artists, musicians buried here..."everything that makes the history of a city."  (Rough translation.)   

After exploring it with friend Whitni, I came to the conclusion that the cemetery, in addition to housing the city's history, is in a sense a microcosm of the city itself. 

The Guayaquil city cemetery starts at the base of a hill just north of downtown Guayaquil and sprawls upward and outward to encompass the hilltop and then down its opposite side.  The place is vast and has multiple entrances.  We entered through a gate right off the main highway leading into Guayaquil.  

The guard took our IDs and ushered us through rather incredulously - I'm guessing the cemetery doesn't see many tourists.  Or anyone else for that matter; the whole time we were there, which was all afternoon, we encountered all of one family visiting a grave, and the only other sign of life was a cemetery worker guy walking toward us and I was afraid he was going to yell at us for using our cameras but as it turned out he just wanted to know if we'd like him to paint a grave.  We said, No thanks.

This is the section where we entered, a labyrinth of stairs and blocks of graves/tombs...I'm not sure of the exact terminology for these structures, so for lack of a better phrase I will call them what they appear to be: death condominiums.  The mid-level-income, rent-an-apartment section of the cemetery, if you will.

There were hundreds upon hundreds of these.  Some were stenciled, and others were fancied up with plaques and reliefs.  Some had fresh wreaths of flowers, others had been left untouched for what looked like long periods of time.

Foreground: death condominiums

In the distance: downtown Guayaquil

We came upon rows and rows of empty condos, which felt somewhat eerie.  Supposedly they are all reserved, and with space running out at the city cemetery, a new one is being built on a hill across town.

His body rests here,

his spirit in Heaven,

and his memory lives

and will live on in our hearts.

After winding our way up and around the side of the hill, the narrow walkways between the death condos opened up to a wider space with graves in the ground.

We had arrived at the "campo" - the countryside - part of the cemetery.  It started out as graves lined up in a somewhat orderly manner, with a paved path leading upward.  As we went further, we realized that at intervals the path branched off to both sides, in effect creating tiers up the side of the hill.  And as we ascended, the less kempt the gravesites became, the more the plantlife pressed in, and the harder it became to discern where the path was.  Eventually the rows became individual graves scattered upon the hillside, some better tended than others.

We reached the big cross at the top of the hill.  Well, we thought it was the top, but now that we'd reached it we realized it was just one peak obscuring more hillside and yet another ascent.

At that point, the path looked like this:

The light was beginning to fade, we were in dire need of insect repellent, and who knew what sort of wildlife lurked down that fading trail.  We decided that the far side of the hill was why the guard took our IDs when we entered the cemetery, and that this would have to be an adventure for another day. 

We made our way back down towards the more densely populated portion of the cemetery.

"Daughters of the Charity of San Vicente de Paul"

It seems the obligation to live in seclusion lasts...forever?

Once back on ground level, we walked around the base of the hill, along the highway, towards the city.  That's where we found cemetery suburbia...

monumental mansion mausoleums,

mansion-like mausoleum monuments,

mausolean monument mansions,

etc., etc.

Burial site of Victor Emilio Estrada,

former President of the Republic of Ecuador.

Held office for one year, in 1911, before dying of a heart attack.

"Luke!  Take these two over to the garage, will you?  I want them cleaned up before dinner."

"But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters..."

I mean no disrespect to the dead.  The above mausoleum simply reminded us of a certain movie set, and what better way to end this post than with a quote from Star Wars.

Some of the photos in this post were taken by Whitni.