AntiguaDailyPhoto.Com

Today’s photograph is dedicated to those friends that have pointed out that in over 427 days I have taken over 34 photos of atriums and churches, but not a single photo from the inside of a church. Let me tell you, it was not easy, but I decided to just walk in and take a few shots. So there, see I can also take photographs from inside the churches. Here is another close-up view of the altar of San Pedro Las Huertas Church without people. I hope you are not put off by religious motifs.

Ego boosting side note update: Today was published an interview made to me for the Faces magazine, a Spanish-language magazine, which is part of the Siglo XXI, one of the largest newspapers in Guatemala. The interview is in Spanish, so you may not understand but a few words, unless you can read Spanish; I had to share it with you guys anyway. The Faces magazine does not have a web site, so I had to scan the page where the interview appeared.

For those who like to imagine what ruins were like and what people did around them I have todays photo of San Pedro Las Huertas Town fair with the church (not a ruin) in the background and all kind of food vendors around the town’s plaza. So this is what the ruins looked like when they were in used by the people of the past. If you would like to browse for other photos from San Pedro Las Huertas, just follow the white rabbit or if you only want to see a better shot of the church in the background just say we’re not in Kansas anymore. Come back tomorrow for a follow up on the San Pedro Las Huertas fair. San Pedro Las Huertas is one the small villages that belong to La Antigua Guatemala. Here you can see the geomap location.

Update: I forgot to include this video clip on Friday.

… it tolls for thee.

No man is an island, entire of itself… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. John Donne (1572-1631)

Perhaps you guys are right, this site is actually yours and I am only the care taker; the person in charge of feeding it. I shall continue for a while longer.

I want to thank all you for your wonderful feedback. Believe it, your comments and feedback are the only compass that I have to know this site is useful to someone out there. The only way to know that I should continue sharing my findings.

I have maintained this site for 426 days without any interruptions or breaks; there are close to 600 photos describing many aspects of life in La Antigua Guatemala and Guatemala in general. I have aspired to give you a blog-documentary (blogumentary) of the peoples, traditions, history, cultural hindsight, architecture, monuments, ruins, streets, et-cetera of La Antigua Guatemala. I have tried to not make this a touristic site; although sometimes it is difficult since LAG is the touristic capital of northern Central America. I have put so many of my twisted opinions and points of views; maybe I should do less of that and just focus in describing the photographs. Also, please excuse all the typos and spelling errors.

Special thanks to the two people who donated towards the hosting bills. Please, send me your mailing address, so I can mail you some post cards made from the photographs found in this site.

Oops! I almost forgot about the photo above. These ruins belong to the church Our Lady of the Remedies, or Nuestra Señora de los Remedios in Spanish. It is located on the left bank of El Pensativo river, on the south part of town, right on the street that takes you to El Calvario Church; just a few hundred feet from it. The processional figures in storage, shown yesterday, are pile on the front part of the atrium. There is a black bird in the picture, can you find it?

Above you can see the processional figures taking some time off from work in Nuestra Señora de los Remedios Church Ruins, near El Calvario in La Antigua Guatemala.

The Ramblimg Side Note: Why, but why do I put so much work into this site? Why do I work for nothing? Why waste on average two hours of my daily life for nothing? Why should I continue to throw away my precarious free time? Why invest my already scarce economic resources in camera equipment, sd memories and batteries for an inconsequential, worthless web site? Is this site really worthless? Is my time valueless? Why should I continue an unprofitable project like this one? Does any of you guys even care for this site anymore?

Traditional Guatemalan cuisine refuses to be phased out in favor of international fast food like hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs and chinese food. Even though foreign fast food is convenient, it lacks the complexity in flavors that Guatemalan dishes have. Even a simple dish like Revolcado de Panza, a sort of tomato-based curry with spices and cow’s underbelly brings forth an avalanche of flavors, textures and feelings to the taste buds.

Traditional Guatemalan dishes take a long time to be prepared, sometimes even weeks like the Fiambre (a cold-cuts salad), so they can not compete with fast food junk food in the time of preparation. But who says they have to be prepared the moment you show up to order it? That is fine for sandwiches, but Guatemalan traditional meals are sold by having a ready-made buffet where one can go and just order portions.

Guatemalan cuisine can compete with prices since most meals are very affordable for being such complex food. For instance, the meal above which includes revolcado de panza (Q5/$0.65), 4 chiles rellenos (Q2.25/$0.28 each), 1 Guatemalan sweet bread and 2 pirujos (Q2/$0.25) and a cup of the best coffee in the world (Q2/$0.25) is only Q18/$2.30, at an exchange rate of 7.80 Quetzales per US$1. If we compare the cost of this Guatemalan full meal with the cost of Big Mac or BK Whooper, which is about Q22 ~ Q25, we can see that Guatemalan cuisine gives you much more for less.

Remember that you can browse the food and drinks category for a sampler of many Guatemalan dishes, some with recipes. Bon appetite!

What’s in a name? That which we call La Antigua Guatemala. By any other name would enchant us the same.

This is a BIG controversy. This is a petty controversy.

The English-language speaking community refuses to recognize the official name of La Antigua Guatemala because it is too long or lack of knowledge or poor Spanish-language skills; who knows really?. They just want to call it Antigua. But Antigua is a Caribbean Island. Yet, they refuse to call it La Antigua Guatemala, which, by the way, simply means the former Guatemala City.

To add to this confusion, many Guatemalans just call it Antigua too, although more often they say La Antigua. This error is even published by newspapers and magazine. Worst yet, the road signs just say Antigua Guatemala. Even Wikipedia just have it listed as Antigua Guatemala, which by the way means Old Guatemala.

So what is the big deal? Nothing much really. Just like Shakespeare said, a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. I believe I have touch the subject a couple of times before, but I believed it needs further clarification. Below is the quoted text from April 30th, 2007.

… La Antigua Guatemala means almost the same thing; it could be translated as The Old Guatemala City. So, now that you know Antigua means old, you can understand that calling the city OLD or ANTIGUA is a misnomer since the word old is only the adjective modifying the name Guatemala. When people just use Antigua instead of La Antigua Guatemala is almost like if we only used “new” for New York or New Zealand or “San” for San Francisco. On top of it, the single word Antigua refers to a Caribbean Island.

Now for the really interesting part of the controversy we have to deconstruct Harry the FOUR pieces of the name. That is right I said four (4) pieces of the name. Let us begin:

LA: The article is very important because it is the only part of the name which really makes the location unique. La or The is what separates La Antigua Guatemala from any Old Guatemala.

ANTIGUA: The adjective modifies the noun Guatemala in many different ways. It could be translated as antique, old, former, ancient, previous, just to name a few. Antigua by itself does not mean La Antigua Guatemala or Former Guatemala City or The Old Guatemala City.

CIUDAD de/CITY of: This invisible part is my contribution to the controversy. This part is invisible because in Spanish sometimes we obviate the obvious. We say I am going to Guatemala/Mexico if we are in the rural areas and we mean to say our going to the capital city or to Guatemala City. When we say La Antigua Guatemala we really are saying The Old Guatemala City or The Former Guatemala City. So, believe when I say the word city is there, we just don’t pronounce it. Okay, let see if it flies.

GUATEMALA: The noun Guatemala has an invisible last name which is city. Guatemala City and Mexico City are only two of the capital cities that carry the name of the country and thus need the word city to differentiate it.

Would this entry change any minds? I hope so. It is okay to call La Antigua Guatemala, Antigua, La Antigua or Antigua Guatemala in informal situations. People do that all the time with LA (Los Angeles), NYC (Nueva York), Vegas, Frisco, et-cetera. But, it is unacceptable to use a short name in formal situations like maps, travel guides, travelblogs, newspaper articles, books, magazines, and so on. I think?!

Even though I said before that people enjoy walking and strolling La Antigua Guatemala. I sort of lied. See walking is still the best way to get to know and to enjoy La Antigua. But the problem is that the sidewalks are uneven, there are all kinds blocking part of the sidewalk and many people hit their head with the concrete or rock window sills. Sometimes the sidewalk gets broken by a driveway or the cement cover of the water meter is missing and there is huge hole where you break your foot. So I sort of lied, but you can still enjoy the strolls around Antigua Guatemala, if you are careful.

However, if you are handicapped, La Antigua Guatemala could be a nightmare. There aren’t wheelchair ramps in the corners; the sidewalks are too narrow; and you still have to deal all the problems listed above. La Antigua sin barreras (La Antigua Guatemala Without Barriers) was a project/NGO which tried to fix the sidewalks and made them wheelchair/handicap friendly. Whichever block they were able to fix, the placed a tiny handicap white-and-blue tile. You can see how small the tiles are by looking at this other photo. I don’t know whatever happened to La Antigua Guatemala Without Barriers project, but for sure they were not able to fix all the sidewalks around Antigua Guatemala. Too bad, because by fixing the sidewalks for the handicap, they were fixing the sidewalks for everybody else.

Does anybody know what happened to La Antigua Guatemala Without Barriers?

Diversify is very sound advice for any business. Patsy, who loves chicken, would say, don’t put all the eggs in one basket. So, it is no surprise to find stands, like the one pictured above, in La Antigua Guatemala’s market which sells all kinds of items. This photograph gives me an idea for a new easy game (we haven’t got a game for a while) for this weekend.

The game is very simple: identify as many items as possible from the market stand above and leave your inventory in the comments. You can also leave your questions for the things that are unknown to you. Let the game begin!

Wi-Fi access is becoming so wide spread around Antigua Guatemala that soon you may be able to stand in any corner and get two or three free access points. Y tu piña también is yet another unique coffee house which serves rich aromatic Antigua coffee, Guatemalan licuados (fresh fruit smoothies) with piquete from a wide selection of mezcal shots, fresh fruits and vegetable salads, cookies, exotic pastries and Wi-Fi access so you can check the daily photos from around the world; all while listening to the best selection of world music.

Boy oh boy, bagels, English muffins, exotic pastries, all the cookies in the rainbow, the best coffee and Wi-Fi internet access can almost make you forget you are in a Spanish colonial town embedded between coffee plantations, flower farms and volcanoes in the central mountain range of this tiny banana baby-exporting republic known as Guatemala.

And in front of the door that I hadn’t crossed in so many years,
I remembered the small key, short and round, and how to turn it to open; the tiny hand of the door knocker, the mail box, the wood, the cord to open the door without knocking. At the end of the street, the perfect triangle of Volcán de Agua, enormous, serene and blue. —Luis Cardoza y Aragón

Luis Cardoza y Aragón was born in La Antigua Guatemala in June 21st, 1901. He was one of the best writers of Latin America and the World. He’s considered to be as good as Miguel Ángel Asturias (1967 Nobel Prize in literature) if not better. He is quite possibly the greatest mind of the last century born in La Antigua Guatemala. He was a brilliant essayist, novelist and poet. His essays in art rival those written by Octavio Paz, and some considered them better. He’s even listed as a philosopher by some professors. Luis Cardoza y Aragón bibliography is quite extensive (browse it if you want to get an overall idea of his works). You can also browse the page dedicated to him in the website literaturaguatemalteca.org and read some of his poems and works, if you can understand Spanish.

So, how come I only show you a plaque pointing to Luis Cardoza y Aragón’s birthplace and home in La Antigua Guatemala. Why don’t I go and photograph the monument, or park, or building named after him? After all, it doesn’t take much to get a road name after a person like Walter Williams who got a monument and road named after him just because he was present at the moment they inaugurated the road.

To commemorate and to honor Luis Cardoza y Aragón as one of the brightest minds of La Antigua Guatemala there are only two pieces: today’s plaque placed in the façade of his former house by his own family and another plaque in the Colegio Santo Tomás building which was posted here as Why do We Love Our Land?! For sure, La Antigua Guatemala is malinchista and ungrateful.

I leave you with another fragment of one his poems about Guatemala:

We don’t love our land because of its great size and power,
because of its weakness or tiny size,
because of its snow and white nights or its solar rain,
We love it, simply because is ours.
— Luis Cardoza y Aragón

Translation side note: Please forgive the rough translations which I do on the fly and very freely and to the best of my abilities. For sure, a better translation exists or if one of you can do a better job, please leave that in the comments. Thanks.

“Chevere” is a Venezuelan Spanish word which means cool, fine, excelent, okay, just to mention a few of its meaning. Well, about the origin of the chevere word, I don’t know; perhaps it is not even Venezuelan. Nonetheless, the word is understood and used in Central America.

In Guatemala, a company of hot dogs decided to use it as its name in the late seventies or early eighties. The company did things right and it was a total hit and the Chevere brand became almost as omnipresent as Coca Cola, Pepsi and the Gallo Beer. It was everywhere.

The Chevere hot dog is very simple indeed, and maybe that was its strong point. The Guatemalan chevere hot was prepared (and still is) with a bun, one or two salchichas (Spanish for hot dog sausage), grated raw cabbage, mustard, mayonnaise and ketchup; Picamás green chili sauce made from chiltepes was available on request.

I don’t know what happened to the company in the late eighties or nineties, but today you can barely find the infamous Chevere hot dog cart in a few places, like Panjachel, Xela, La Antigua and Guatemala City.

In La Antigua Guatemala I have seen three Chevere hot dog carts: one on the Alameda Santa Lucí­a, in front of the Rafael Landivar Memorial; another cart right across the IGSS park on the road to San Felipe; and the Chevere cart picture above right outside the San Francisco El Grande Church (burial home to Santo Hermano Pedro de Betancourt).

Here is a question for those who have visited Guatemala and for those Guatemalans living abroad, when was the last time you had a Chevere hot dog and where? Did you have more than one?

Today’s night photo is to follow up my entry of Dramatic Illumination of Ruins and Historic Buildings with a better example. Back in June 3rd, I mentioned that many ruins and historic buildings in La Antigua Guatemala get a light bath a key places with spot light as to emphasize and to add drama to building that might not look impressive during the day. You now can see what a big difference a tripod can make when taking photos at night.

In the photo above, you can see the San Agustí­n ruins in the foreground, the Moon in the background and Venus between the two.

Please, let me know what do you think of this night shot and for those who have been here, tell me if you remember seeing this building?

The photo above shows what a typical entrance to a coffee plantation looks like. Finca Las Ilusiones is just south of El Calvario church, on the Walter Williams road. Finca is the Guatemalan Spanish word for plantation or farm. The small door is for the workers, the large door for the coffee plantation owner; there is so much more traffic through the small door. In terms of efficiency, logic does not apply here.

June 17th is the date when Father’s Day is celebrated in Guatemala, always on the same date every year.

Many Guatemalan families come to La Antigua Guatemala on the weekends to have breakfast or lunch in one of the many fabulous restaurants around town and to pass a relax day with the family. One the activities may include a horseback ride around Parque Central for the children, while the father or mother walks next to the horse around the block. Or ride for the whole family in one of the many horse-powered carriages.

In the photo above, I was lucky to catch a glimpse of a father carrying his daughter pink backpack while she takes a horseback ride around the Central Park. I wonder what’s inside the backpack? Other aspect worth noting are the bags in the back of the horses; do you know what are they for?

In Guatemala the rainy season brings the rainbow season too. The rainy season in Guatemala wets the months or May through October, sometimes even November which are basically the summer and fall seasons in the Northern Hemisphere where Guatemala is located. Most Guatemalans equate the wet months of May though October with winter, so they call it invierno, winter, even though we are in the summer season. Are you confused yet? Well read up my entry on The Land of the Eternal Spring for some clarification or to totally give up on logic.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day in Guatemala, always on the same date, June 17th. I hope to catch something for you.

UPDATE: For a humoristic look at the weather and weather forecasting in Guatemala and to see an unbelievable photograph of thunderstorm in Guatemala City, please read El Canche’s entry on Predicting the Weather in Guatemala.