La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo

I don’t know what exactly haunts me about this image. Maybe the moon in the background, the green branches barely lit or the forged-metal railing. What do you think of it?

If I walk around Antigua Guatemala and photograph all the street corners, I could do a series for a long while just about corners. Every corner has its own little personality and color. I leave you with a few samples from the past: Green Corner, White Corner, Yellow Corner, Red Corner and Orchid Corner.

What makes the life-style of Antigua Guatemala so appealing? Well, for starters we point out the great weather. Fountains, gardens with many exotic flowers and plants, bright-colored houses, red Spanish-style roof-tiles, big doorways, forged metal windows, domes, antique lamps (1, 2, 3 & 4), among other things. To top it all, its warm and friendly people. The photograph above encloses many of the ingredients needed for the Antigüeño life-style, or should I say for: a magnificent life-style.

Finally Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo reached its post 300. We’ll celebrate while we’re a head. Just a spin on Marie’s, “Quit While You’re a Head” on January 16th from Alexandria Daily Photo. While 300 posts are nothing compare to other sites like Tenerife Daily Photo, with 500 posts on Friday, or even Paris Daily Photo, with close 700 posts; but, it is quite an achievement for me. Also, Jakarta Daily Photo celebrated 300 posts this week.

By the way, a question to LD, what date will the Christmas bulbs be taken down?

Thank you all for your wonderful comments and your regular visits.

Yesterday I talked about meeting people and having lunch at La Fuente Restaurant, which is a restaurant I visit often because of their economic daily menu. La Fuente Restaurant is next door to Doña Luisa Xicotencatl, one of Antigua’s landmark. La Fuente’s menu is basically a mixture between Tex-Mex and Italian foods, but for their economic daily menu, they serve mostly authentic Guatemalan dishes; including Chow Mein. Some other dishes from the Guatemalan Cuisine series that I have had at La Fuente include: Frijoles Colorados and Hilachas.

Pepian is another traditional or typical meal from Guatemala. It is based on recado, a tomato, chillies and spices sauce, and some vegetables like potatoes and güisquil (chayote is the Mexican name and most people recognize by this name) along either beef or chicken. I imagine the original recipe calls for Turkey, which what most indigenous recipes use for meat. Most recado recipes are served with Guatemalan rice and the ever-present tortillas. Here is the recipe for Guatemalan Pepian (excuse the Mexican spelling for the dish).

If you are interested at looking a small sampler of foods and drinks from Guatemala, please check the Food and Drinks category or the Guatemalan Cuisine series.

Just five days ago I was talking about the learning process and how it can be triggered by a simple image like the Foremost logo on Ice Cream Graphic Menu photograph. More often, for me that is, the learning process begins right after a film, book or song.

The concept of Six Degrees of Separation became part my cultural baggage after having watched Will Smith performed brilliantly the role of Paul in the film Six Degrees of Separation.

According to information found at Wikipedia: Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that all human beings are connected through relationships with at most six other people. Several studies, such as Milgram’s small world experiment have been conducted to empirically measure this connectedness. While the exact number of links between people differs depending on the population measured, it is generally found to be relatively small. Hence, six degrees of separation is somewhat synonymous with the idea of the “small world” phenomenon.

So, what is that got to do with today’s photo? Well, let me explain. Back on May 18th, 2006 I published a photograph of a giant Guatemalan ant by the name of Sompopo, which, by the way, is only seen in May. The second comment in the entry was made by a person by the name of Sompopo, from the site Sompopo’s Revenge. From the point forward a virtual relationship emerged and I gained a friend; well two friends since Sompopo’s wife is also my friend; not bad if you consider that Sompopo and I do not see eye-to-eye on just about anything, but especially politics. There are ‘real people’ behind all this cyberspace, sites, forums, communities, and blogs or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes there are six degrees of separation and sometimes there is only one. Today, I had lunch in Antigua with Sompopo’s extended family: the mother, sister and brother-in-law of Sompopo and Sompopo’s wife, Flor. Thus, I was separated from Sompopo and Flor by one degree.

It was a pleasure to meet and had lunch with Lizzette, Jim, Flor’s mom and the guy with the baseball cap (his name escapes me now).

Now I wonder, when I will get to meet all you? either in person of by some degree of separation. Either way, I am happy to report that I have gained many friends through the Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo, including you! If you are just lurking in the back, please, stop by and say hello.

This is one of the kitchens at La Fonda de la Calle Real, which shows a typical kitchen in the colonial times. As you can see, if you click on the image to enlarge it, that most of the pots and pans were made from ceramic (cooked clay). La Fonda de la Calle Real is one of Antigua’s landmarks with three locations around Calle del Arco. Mr. Bill Clinton and her Royal Highness Infanta Doña Cristina ate here at different times. You can see the entrance of one of the restaurants in the Antigua’s Color Palette: Red as well as more information.

Countdown side note: Today’s entry is number 297 so far and we continue with a countdown to post 300th. Also, please visit Tenerife Daily Photo which is about to reach its 500th photo.