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Here are some random facts, bits and trivia about Guatemalan coffee I have been collecting for a while:

• The average price for high quality coffee in Guatemala is Q45/$5.50 per pound.
• The average price of Q45/lb for high quality Guatemalan coffee is about 70% of a day’s minimum wage
• Guatemala has several high altitude regions that produce high quality coffee; the best knowns regions are Antigua, Atitlán, Cobán and Huehuetenango.
• Huehuetenango is the region in Guatemala is breaking new records of how much a pound of coffee should sell for.
• Finca El Injerto, in Huehuetenango, won the Coffee Cup of Excellence in 2009.
• Coffee was introduced around 1875 in Guatemala , to replace the cochineal dyes industry which succumbed to synthetic dyes of the industrial revolution.
• Finca Filadelfia in La Antigua Guatemala was among the first coffee plantations in Guatemala.
• Fernando, from Fernando’s Kaffee, pays over $2 per pound of coffee to be roasted to the coffee farmer, which is higher than the Fair Trade price. He even coins a new term: SmarTrade.
• Small-production Guatemalan coffee growers can’t make ends meet, according to a post from AntiguaDailyPhoto’s guest contributor Laura McNamara.

There are plenty more facts and trivia about the Guatemalan Coffee for sure. Please, spill your coffee beans facts and trivia in the comment section. We want to know!

Here is one more entry for the Only in LAG. Leave it to the creative people of La Antigua Guatemala to produce coffee tables, literally, for a patio dining area.

The above dining patio with coffee tables can be found at Fernando’s Kaffee, an authentic Guatemalan coffee shop run by Fernando who roasts his own selection of coffee beans and prepares the best double latté in town.

Click the thumbnails below to view the details of the coffee table and double latté heart!

Chanin chanin mija, we don’t want to become victims of the Guatemalan Diaspora!

Repollitos are little cabbages and that’s what Jenn Klee used to call hortensias when she was a little kid. I can see the similarities with little cabbages sprouts.

Hortensias are called Hydranga by most people in the U.S., I learned, thanks to Stephanie, who also shared with us that they can be found in different colors—white, pink, lavender, and blue; all the same variety but shifting colors according to composition of the soil they are in.

Hydranga flowers are very popular in the jardín antigüeño, Antigua garden. You can see the final color of these hortensias here; make sure you pause to read the caption. Also, if you want to see what other flowers are popular in the garden around Antigua Guatemala, make sure you browse the Jardín Antigüeño series.

Yes, believe it or not Guatemala is quite modern and Internet capable.

Yes, Guatemala has 3.5G wireless Internet Access network in mayor cities and Edge-capable networks in most of the country.

Yes, there are iPhone-capable networks from the three main carriers: Telefónica, Claro and Tigo. As a matter of fact, most of my web-savvy friends have iPhones and iPod Touches to access the web either via the 3.5G networks or the free WIFI access points available in restaurants, commercial centers and parks.

Bill recently asked, “Can I put a local sim card in my iphone from US?”

Here are the answers pulled from the Antigua FAQ:

First of all, if your telephone terminal, i.e. iPhone, has been flashed, jail-broken, zapped, cracked, or whatever word they use in your neighborhood, you can bring your telephone and just purchase a chip, sim card, from either Claro, Telefónica (least expensive to call back home), and/or Tigo (best reception all around).

You can only put a local sim card, “chip” as they call it here, if your phone is flashed, jail-broken, cracked, et-cetera. If your phone is jail-broken, then bring it and I recommend you buy a Tigo chip which has the best reception anywhere.

Also, you may purchase a 3.5G Internet-ready chip and be able to have internet access everywhere there’s Tigo signal. The 3.5G Internet-ready pre-paid packages rates are: Q5 for Hora, Q25 for Día, Q100 for Semana and Q325 for Mes. Make sure you get clear instructions on how to buy the pre-paid packages for your terminal. The best of all, you can do this without contracts!

So, yes, you can update your Facebook account and send Twitter updates as you make your way around Guatemala just like the Guatemalans do

If you are in Guatemala, please share with us how you get on the Internet!

A quick search for architectonic details throws beams, arches, baroque elements, Spanish-tile roofs, windows, doorways, et-cetera. Each an individual entry showing a distinct aspect or element of the colonial architecture of La Antigua Guatemala. In today’s photo I was able to capture several elements: the cupola, the window with its ironworks crate, the ojo de buey (bull’s eye) window, the Spanish-tile roof.

Somehow, I believe, the colonial architecture of La Antigua Guatemala is much more than the sum of its elements. What do you think?

There is something about how the sun rises and sets that gets people marveled, or in some kind of magical admiration to what nature shows us. On this past Tuesday I was about to meet some friends, and I began seeing what promised to be a beautiful sunset. Someone on the street said, it is just a sunset. Perhaps the person was depressed, or just angry at something, but it was the first time I’ve ever heard something like this. A few minutes later, I saw people with all sorts of cameras, cell phones, and everyone, me included, just taking photos.

So, the combination of Antigua, good friends, and great colors produced this sunset… In the end, it is just a sunset, Enjoy…

text and photos by Arturo Godoy

It is impossible to think of the Guatemalan, Mexican and Mesoamerican diet without maize. From the Popul Vuh (Popol Wuj in modern spelling), the Mayan equivalent of the Bible, which states that humans were literally created from maize, to Miguel Ángel Asturias‘ novel Hombres de maíz (Men of Maize) which is one of the best novels to understand Mesoamerica and its people. Guatemala and Mexico share the birth place of maize, which was and is the most important crop in human history. The richest diversity of maize can be found in Mesoamerica!

Many of the dishes of the Guatemalan cuisine are based on the milpa crops. The term milpa refers normally to a maize field, but it is so much more. In a milpa field there a dozen crops at once: maize, avocados, multiple kinds of squash, chiles (hot pepper chilli), beans, tomatoes, tomatillos, camotes (sweet potatoes), jicama (a tuber also known as sengkwang, yam bean, singkamas, Mexican turnip), amaranth (also called pigweeds) and mucuma (a tropical legume). “Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary.” said Charles C. Mann in his book 1491. H. Garrison Wilkes, a maize researcher at University of Massachusetts in Boston is quoted in the same book, “The milpa is one of the most successful human inventions ever created.”

After having lived for more than three months now in La Antigua Guatemala, I’ve only been a little around its surroundings. So at some point I was in San Juan del Obispo, San Pedro Las Huertas, and so on, but this past weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Earth Lodge, located in the small village of El Hato, a twenty minute drive into the mountains from La Antigua Guatemala. I had only thought of visiting it once before, but this second time it happened.

So, this past weekend a friend and I went because we also wanted to disconnect a bit from Antigua Guatemala, as there is always plenty of parties. I’m not complaining, but some rest was needed, some other kind of experience. So, having my car down on the day we were to leave was no complication, transportation was arranged for us with ease. No complications, all cool, so then I knew this was going to be amazing.

We left, and the ride was just beautiful. We arrived and we were immediately welcomed. Lunch was delicious, hanging out and relaxing with the stunning landscape was amazing, so time passed and dinner was just as delectable as lunch. The night called in, and everyone went to rest. I was most relaxed and happy and awaiting the sunrise.

First, I opened my eyes and I saw how the golden light of the sunrise was bidding good morning to the volcanoes, there were no clouds. I was already dreaming that I was between volcanoes, so imagine waking up and observing this. Struggling to get out of bed and forcing myself to run out with my camera to take some shots, still, the peace and calm of the place put me back to sleep. The second time I opened my eyes, I forced myself out of the comfortable bed, grabbed the camera and and ran out to take some photographs. Unfortunately, the golden light of the sunrise was gone, but the clouds hadn’t yet come to cover the volcanoes, so here is my shot,

Breakfast was as good as dinner and lunch from the previous day, and of course the coffee was a wonderful. If you ever want to pick an affordable place to disconnect, with absolute beauty and peaceful atmosphere, don’t hesitate, just visit to the Earth Lodge. I am happy we did!

text and photo by Arturo Godoy

About Guest Contributor: Arturo Godoy is kind of a blogger, mainly married to photography after being divorced from biology, and is now living in Antigua for at least six months. He is starting up his photography business after making the transition of amateur photographer to a paid one, hence now a pro. In the few years he’s been in photography he’s had four expositions, and is working on two photographic books, one about expressions of women (a shared book with his dearest friends) and one about conservation of nature. His love to photography rises from expressing something through whatever kind of natural beauty that crosses him and his camera. You can browse his portfolio in Flickr.

I believe the Muni should begin posting these signs all over town. Let licuado lovers be aware!

When he had fished the last fish,
poison the last river,
and cut down the last tree,
man will realize that
he can not eat his money.

With today’s sign I inaugurate a new non-consecutive series called Let the signs speak, which will aggregate signs that speak for themselves. If they need translation, I will do so, but for the most part, I will let the signs speak.

Can you guess where can you find this sign?

This is just one of those rare shots you get when the opportunity strikes. I was scrolling through my email when my roommate suddenly burst out laughing. I looked up to find the house cat, “Gringo,” cruelly toying with its newfound prey… a lagartija, or lizard. The cat had wounded the pour creature and was simply reveling in torturing it: pouncing on it and sending it quickly scrambling nowhere fast on the slick, tiled floor. While I felt sorry for it, my photographer-instinct flared and instead of saving it, I photographed it. I couldn’t pass up the rare opportunity to take a photo of an animal that is usually too wily for humans to get so close. Unfortunately, the light was terrible. Still, I think I still managed to get a pretty cool shot!

text and photos by Laura McNamara

Sweet. Refreshing. Natural. Licuados are one of those treats that truly define a Guatemalan experience. The blended fruit drinks can be found most anywhere in La Antigua from fancy restaurants to local, hole-in-the-wall comedors… and I absolutely LOVE them. They are nothing more than fruit blended with your choice of water, milk, yogurt and, sometimes, orange juice. Often, sugar is added but I always ask for mine to come “sin azucar.” Usually fruit here in Guate is so perfectly ripe (as you can see from the pics) that any added sweetner would be too much… at least for me. So what is it, exactly, that makes licuados so addictive?

The idea of what are essentially smoothies is certainly nothing new to me, a U.S.-native. But, where I’m from in the Midwest, they just aren’t so prevalent. Here, in Guate, there is truly a licuado culture, a licuado craze even. It’s just as common to suggest to a friend to “let’s go grab a licuado” as it is to suggest meeting for a coffee. And this licuado culture has taught me to be more creative with my own smoothie concoctions. Never had I heard using papaya, honeydew or watermelon in a blended drink before coming to Central America… and now those are my top three favorites. Just the other day, the woman whom I rented a room from threw starfruit mixed with orange in her own, homemade version. It tasted quite “rico” as well.

It’s safe to say I’m addicted to these treats. I used to go hunker down to work online at Rainbow Café just so I could sip on a papaya-yogurt licuado while tackling my “to-do list.” It didn’t take me long to find the cheapest licuados in town though. At the market, you can usually order a licuado with water for Q7. At El Merendor it will cost you Q8. Looking for a spot more “oriente” go to Cookies where a licuado with water also costs Q7. Just add a quetzal or two for anything blended with milk or yogurt. Anywhere else, licuados usually cost around Q15 to Q20.

text and photos by Laura McNamara

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There are so many things that could be said about this photograph of two men, both in soldiers uniforms, even if one of them belongs to another age, another era, another place. But in a sense both of them are playing roles—today’s soldier playing one that may seem incongruous, suprising or even paradoxical, especially to those whose memories need only reach back very few years, rather than imagine back almost two thousand. And as someone who is not Guatemalan, and who doesn’t live in La Antigua Guatemala, I will let the image—or perhaps other people, speak of the complexities of history, time, and the place or role each of us play in it.

text and photo by Michele Woodey.

Here are the elements of a weekend photo of LAG on a weekend afternoon:

The Bride and Groom
The SUV
The locals (whatever that means)
The tourists
The hippies
The old cars
The motorcycle
The ice cream cart
…
Loteria! Every picture you take from anywhere around el parque central (is it called that way in LAG?) plays like a game of Loteria (sometimes even with El Borracho thrown in the mix).

Guatemala is a land of contrasts, and in that sense, La Antigua is where these contrasts are more visible. The “metropoli” of Central America keeps reinventing itself century after century and I wonder if I would recognize her as that hangout for my middle class youth, that “centre of the universe” around which my life seems to orbit. What it is still true, is that LAG is the destination of many middle class “ladinos”, like me in other times and every time I visit the motherland, for their weekend afternoons. The capital of the kingdom, full of criollismo and paternalism. With reminders of the power of a class that felt trapped between their European ancestors (that treated them like second class citizens) and the local natives, who were trying to protect their identity from the violent conquest and subsequent colonization. That is the charm of La Antigua, the hometown of Francisco de Fuentes y Guzman chronicler of the kingdom. It can be said, that it is the city where the idea of Guatemala, as a country, as a nation was born. That experiment on eternal feudalism where I left my navel. Don’t let the cobblestone streets and the clay roof tiles fool you, La Antigua is a stronghold, a fortress, a survivor of a time where everyone was still in their place within the colonial social structure. Reborn after earthquakes and exodus as a souvenir a monument to us, ladinos & criollos.

¡Viva La Muy Noble y Muy Leal, Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala!
¡Capital del Reyno de Goathemala!

text and photo by Manolo Romero Escobar

About Guest Contributor: Manolo Romero Escobar is a Guatemalan ex-patriate that calls Canada his godmotherland. Self-exiled and retired blogger is enamoured with the art of science, particularly psychological research and methodology.