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Today’s Palm Sunday or Domingo de Ramos as today’s known in the Catholic Realm. Last year, Domingo de Ramos fell on April 1st and the photo of the day was the palm flower arrangements available in the La Antigua Guatemala’s market.

Today’s photo is very similar to last year’s, but this time the photo was captured in the atrium of San Francisco El Grande Church.

Today’s photo also marks the official beginning of the Holy Week or the Semana Santa. Stay tune we will be covering the big business of Semana Santa!

I have honestly tried not put as many Cuaresma/Lent and Semana Santa/Holy Week photos here. But sometimes it’s impossible not to publish photos like today’s. Talk about the idiosyncrasy of Guatemalans, have you ever seen a more convincing set of Roman Soldiers in your life?

Everybody wants to have the recipe for the Guatemalan Identity. Adopting parents, ONGs, researchers, scientists, writers, poets and even Guatemalan bloggers want to have access to that recipe… The Holy Grail to understands and to make sense of this highly complex and messed up country. Some bloggers dig inside and around the last names for answers; others explore humor and anecdotes for clues. Yet others delve into the memory bank to bring forth the pieces that make up the Guatemalan Identity Puzzle. Such is the case of Chachi and her Babosadas mí­as y demás hierbas blog who recently published an entry under the name of Un suspiro {ñ} or A sigh. In Un suspiro, Chachi, webs together the random polaroids drawn from her childhood memories to build a case for la panaderí­a, la tienda and la tienda de ventana (bakery, convenience store and window convenience store). With this entry, Chachi uncovers or identifies yet another piece the Guatemalan Identity Puzzle. Think of it, even La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo is part of this futile exercise.

Gotcha!

Yet the title is correct, the technique it’s different than yesterday’s photo though. Honest, I have never liked this kind of paintings; costumbrista would be the category for this kind of painting, but I don’t know what term to use in English. Would you guys mind lending a translating term. Thanks!

Well, like always, not everything is bad about the Holy Week in La Antigua Guatemala. If you can obviate the crowds, the traffic, the massive processions, the gorgeous sawdust carpets, the thousands of paparazzi photographers, et-cetera, then you see the city benefits from a makeover through thousands of new paint jobs for façades, window crates, doorways, street repairs, and so on.

La Antigua Guatemala wants to look its best for the most important celebrations of the year: The Holy Week. Sometimes, it seems like all other celebrations throughout the year are simple after shakes of the Holy Week, which begins with Cuaresma (Lent). As you may already know, the Holy Week is celebrated in many places in the world, but very few celebrate with as much grandiloquence as La Antigua Guatemala. The Holy Week celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala is something you must experience for yourself at least once. As a matter of fact, The Holy Week celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala should be very high in the list of to-dos before one dies. All of us should have a list of things to do before dying, like the character Ann in the film My Life Without Me.

So what are you waiting for? Pack your bags and head down south where you can be free!

All the weekends of Lent (Cuaresma) and during the Holy Week La Municipalidad de La Antigua Guatemala (Municipality or City Hall) imposes an entrance fee to all the visitors on wheels.

So on top of all the traffic, crowds, processions, carpeted streets, you have to bring spare change (lots of it) to pay to visit La Antigua Guatemala. Fortunately, the locals (and I mean the villages around LAG) don’t to pay to enter the city.

The sign reads: Prepare you payment for parking and demand your ticket (3 Km ahead). Fine you say, I don’t mind paying for parking, except once you have paid, you entered the city and you realized there is no special parking or anything of the kind; only the same unsafe streets.

This is the kind of road the motorcycle riders arriving to La Antigua Guatemala may find. Even I would like to ride a Harley-Davidson chopper on this road… if it wasn’t for the other uncivilized drivers whom I would have to share the road with. I, like Woody Allen, don’t mind dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

Well, between precessions, a jazz festival and a Central American meeting for Harley-Davidson motorcycle riders, La Antigua has been anything but a quiet place. The roaring of hundreds of Harley-Davidson choppers from all over Central America was deafening. The long row of motorcycles overcrowding the 7a avenida sur was something to be seen.

Boy, I wished you were here!

The last presentation in the three-day Festival de Jazz en Antigua was the Jordi Albert Projet doing a tribute to Chet Baker and billed as a collaboration from Spain. Ironically, two of the musicians of the trio are from Guatemala. Alejandro Álvarez and Victor Arriaza {ñ} are part of the Guatemalan Jazz band called Imox; which is quite possibly the best example of the young jazz movement in Guatemala.

The chilly winds from up north came back to La Antigua Guatemala and thus made more sense to listen and watch to the jazz performance of the Jordi Albert Projet Chet Baker Tribute from L’Espresso Café across the street from the atrium while drinking a cup of the best coffee in the world and eating a very decent plate of Linguini al Pesto. Sacrifices, that’s what I do for you!

My respects and greetings to all the women on the International Woman’s Day!

Tonight it was the turn for Be Little! Trio which is composed of Luca Calabrese, Massimo Minardi and Francesco D’Auria. Be Little! is a jazz trio from Italy and their music takes you through the roads of improvisation of jazz with the help of rare instruments and the guitar, drums and trumpet.

Below you can see the flyer promoting the Festival de Jazz en Antigua; like always, if you click on it you can see an enlarge version.

Honest, I don’t mean to brag. But I have to say sometimes life can be pretty good in La Antigua Guatemala. Let me explain. In La Antigua Guatemala, sometimes you get access to free events like music concerts, photo exhibits, plays, paintings exhibitions, et-cetera.
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Once again here is a picture by request. See, Edgar got jealous because Carmen obtained a couple photos of rellenitos as requested, so immediately Edgar mentioned the paternas which are only available in the coastal low lands of Southern Guatemala. Boy, I really go out of the way for you guys.

Now, Edgar and the others Guatemalans will have to explain what this tropical fruit is, what kind of tree it grows on, about its taste and how paternas are eaten. Go for it!

Blame it on Carmen… Yes, it was Carmen who turned me onto this catchy song which is used as the soundtrack intro to Weeds. Then, thanks to Youtube I found a Spanish version of Little Boxes by Victor Jara which goes by the name of Las Casitas del Barrio Alto; boy! what a magnificent version that is.

Anyhow, what’s got Little boxes to do with today’s entry. Well, once you listen to Little boxes or Las Casitas del Barrio Alto, you’d know it is impossible to get them out of your head. In a recent trip to México over the weekend we took the new road Carretera 14 to reach the highway that takes us to Southeast México. Carretera 14 is part of the road which will circumvent La Antigua Guatemala and some of the villages. In other words, Carretera 14 is the backbone for what will be the periférico around La Antigua Guatemala. Carretera 14 is also one the most beautiful stretches of road in Guatemala. From Carretera 14 you also get this outstanding view of the little gray boxes of Ciudad Vieja.

How can 3 kilometers (2 miles) make such a difference between a gorgeously and enchanting city like La Antigua Guatemala, full of color, and the ugly square gray boxes of Ciudad Vieja?

I am sure Malvina Reynolds would have not been inspired to write Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky-tacky, Little boxes, little boxes, Little boxes, all the same. There’s a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one. And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky… (the whole lyrics).

Come on, just because you’re dead it doesn’t mean you can not have access to good coffee. This coffee field is right behind the San Lázaro Cemetery in La Antigua Guatemala. This photo was taken from this crypts in San Lázaro cemetery.

You do remember the series about the San Lazaro Cemetery, right?.

So what makes La Antigua Guatemala the best coffee in the world? To get the best cup of coffee of the world, one must start with the right altitude; somewhere above 1,500 meters above the sea level; add lots of fertile volcanic soil; mix in plenty of rain (about six months); stable temperate weather (about 76˚ F / 25˚ C); once you have the above, make sure you plant the best possible Arabica coffee.

Below you can read a summary of the whole process by Eve Andersson and if you visit her web site you can also see pictures describing every single stage.

Growing
The plants start out in pots for the first couple years of their lives, then they’re transported to high-altitude fields where they grow in the shade of large [Gravilea] trees that let just the right amount of sunlight through.

Processing
The beans fruits are picked, pulped, washed, dried, sorted by size, sorted by density, hand sorted for defects, roasted, and packaged.

Tasting
This is the best part. It’s like a wine tasting; you take a sip and then spit it out. The high-altitude Arabica coffee grown in [La] Antigua [Guatemala] was by far the best coffee.

Come back tomorrow to see a coffee plantation for the dead!

Breaking News Side Note:
MiPeriódico supplement of the Guatemalan Newspaper elPeriódico [ñ] is covering the La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo in their Sunday edition for March 2nd, 2008. If you want to see what pictures they chose to highlight and to read the introductory text (if you can read Spanish), you can visit them online at MiPeriódico supplement or purchase the Sunday edition of elPeriódico.