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Close-up of Hydrangea macrophylla or Hortensias in Spanish BY RUDY GIRON

Guateflora: Hortensias

We continue our close-up look at the most common flowers found in the gardens of Antigua Guatemala with Hortensias the common name …

It’s Pumkin Season in Guatemala

Here’s your illustrated Spanish word of the day: Calabaza for squash. In Guatemala we also use ayote and chilacayote for specific kinds …

Let Lent Season Begin

Here’s you Spanish word of the day: Cuaresma or Lent. Once again, from the early morning reports started to pour in, around …

Coffee Still Life by Rudy Giron

Coffee Trivia from Guatemala

The first time we “officially” drunk coffee in Guatemala was in 1743 for the celebration of the conversion of the Catedral de …

Heavy Downpours In Guatemala

Havoc all over Guatemala as flash floods, mudslides and heavy rains pour all over the country due to low pressure tropical storm …

Guatemalan Coffee FTW!

Another crop that I have found on my walks through the hills on the skirt of Volcán de Agua is coffee. These …

Guatemalan Chupetes

Today’s picture is an unusual perspective, perhaps even an original take on the chupetes which are normally photographed like this. Well, you …

Antigua Guatemala Cathedral Altar

This church with its three chairs provides a symbolic representation of the crucifixion; with each seat representing each cross. In this take, …

Typical Guatemalan Nativity Scene

This is also the season of posadas (shelter quest) and nacimientos (nativity scenes) in Latin America, Guatemala and more specifically Antigua Guatemala. …

Entrance to Iglesia El Calvario by Rudy Giron

Entrance to Iglesia El Calvario

El Calvario or Calvary (Golgotha) is the name of the mount on the outskirts of Jerusalem where it’s believed that Jesus Christ …

What should I eat today?

Since Antigua Guatemala is the tourism capital for Central America, it’s quite common to see tourists, local and foreign, window shopping for …

Garden Art: Owl Sculpture

I know that to keep abundant richly verdant mountains in Guatemala we have to have a 6-month rainy season. But, enough is …

Antigua Holy Week Imagery by Leonel -Nelo- Mijangos

Antigua Holy Week Imagery

Do not underestimate the power of catholic imagery. You see, the world-famous Antigua Guatemala processions are about showing the devoted images as a reminder and representation of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Also, today all Stations of the Cross altars will be open and many if not all procession will pay a visit to El Calvario Church, which is located on the southern outskirts of La Antigua Guatemala. El Calvario or Calvary (Golgotha) is the name of the mount on the outskirts of Jerusalem where it’s believe Jesus Christ was crucified. This church with its three arches provides a symbolic representation of the crucifixion; with each arch representing each cross.

Boots “R” Us

Boots, boots, boots… I bet you didn’t know that there is town near Antigua Guatemala where one can choose from a large …

Mermaid Architectonic Detail

I wonder what’s the fascination with mermaids and sirens around La Antigua Guatemala, a town located in the highlands of Guatemala, a …

Geek food in Antigua Guatemala

I guess geeks will be geeks regardless where they come from. I mean, Guatemalan geeks eat no different than other computer geeks …

Guatemalan Cuisine: Pescado frito

Fried fish is another popular dish in Guatemala. The fried fish presentation above can be found just about anywhere in Guatemala. Normally …

The Ages of Coffee

In this photograph I try to captured the different ages or stages of the coffee berries. Since we are showing the different …

New Closing Time City Ordinances

There is new seismic activity in La Antigua Guatemala’s grapevine. For a while now, I’ve been hearing rumors about new closing times …

Time To Take A Nap

Guatemala is a tiny little country with a tremendous wealth of things to do and see. From La Antigua Guatemala, you can …

Rainy Season Break

Eveyone needs a break every once in a while. Today will be my break. However, before I head for the beach, I …

Zapatero a tu zapato

Believe it or not, in La Antigua Guatemala people still take their shoes for repairs, quite often extending the life of shoes …

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Maya is a civilization really preoccupied with the unbearable lightness of being and masochistic on top of it all by keeping a long count which shows how insignificant we really are. We humans, however, we really muddle ourselves with all kinds of fixations, preoccupations and obsessions like dates.

Constructing a Canopy Course

“We could see the topography was just perfect,” Victor Gallo confidently asserted. Victor Gallo is the expert Antigua Canopy Tours hired to …

The UNIMOG Hog

What a beast. The journey of “flying through the forest” with Antigua Canopy Tours begins with a ride in the unique UNIMOG, …

Guatemalan Women Are Moving!

I am happy to report that slowly but surely Guatemalan women are moving into all the positions they deserve. Two good friends …

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Thank you for your interest in promoting your business on AntiguaDailyPhoto.com, the largest and number 1 online resource in English for travelers, visitors …

Surf’s Up Dudes!

Last year I showed you one of the Surf Shops in La Antigua Guatemala and talked about surfing in Guatemala in general. …

Holy Week: An Equal Opportunity Celebration

That is right, Semana Santa in Guatemala is an equal opportunity celebration. Sure, cucuruchos take the majority of the clicks of cameras and most of the video recorded, but children, women and dogs have a place in the Holy Week celebrations. Women’s float or andas are a bit smaller and carry virgins or angels most of the time.

Small Procession in San Pedro Las Huertas

Processions are majestic, huge and long in La Antigua Guatemala. You can browse the Processions category to get an idea of the size of the processions in La Antigua Guatemala. There are smaller and more humble processions in the villages and small communities surrounding La Antigua Guatemala. This year, I will try to focus more in the Holy Week celebrations and processions in the villages where you can still observe the fervor, regardless of the size, for all these Catholic rituals. The photo above was taken in the village of San Pedro Las Huertas, while the procession made a pit stop or parada as they are known in Spanish. Well, I think that is the name, maybe somebody more knowledgeable in Catholic rituals can provide the actual name for the stops the processions make every so often at specific spots.

God and the Laptop

It is incredible that one time women, nuns to be more specific, were not allowed contact with the outside world. The Arco de Santa Catarina, one of La Antigua Guatemala’s landmark was built to prevent the nuns to be seen by the outsiders, quite possibly men, while they move from side of the street to the other side where they eat or pray; don’t know for sure which one.

I am glad to know that now nuns are allowed to walk freely in search for the best Wi-Fi spot in town so they can update their blogs. 😉

Ice-capped Volcanoes in La Antigua Guatemala

Sometimes you just have to ask yourself what kind of strange brew are the Canadians brewing way up north, heh. See, first they steal our bright minds; then they take our gold and buy out our postal service; they insert strange things into our antigüeño breakfast (bacon they call it); even our money is now Canadian (it reads Canadian Bank Note on the brand-new Quetzal bills); just to name a few things. In return they send salsa-dancing-craze Spanish students and the horrible and hostile weather. Come on, this is Guatemala, a tropical country in Central America, you know, the tiny land that impedes the Caribbean Island from moving over the Pacific Ocean. So what business does it have freezing-cold-ice-capping winds in La Antigua Guatemala. See, we don’t need no sticking ice-capped mountains and volcanoes in our gorgeous temperate-always-sun-shining-eternal-spring weather. Those volcanoes you see in the background are ice-capped (see larger image).

Traditional Guatemalan Christmas Food: Fried Plantains

But like in anything else in life, something good emerged from such a tragic history. Fried plantains, rellenitos (fried plantain mass filled with black beans), atol de platano (plantain-based hot and thick drink) and even the wrappings of traditional Guatemalan tamal came from the banana trees. Man, I could on and on talking about bananas recipes and dishes in Guatemala like Bubba did in Forest Gump about shrimp.

The Ecological Way to Celebrate the Burning of the Devil in Guatemala

For those who would rather break a piñata than playing around with fire, I present to you the Lucky 7 Burning of the Devil Piñata for you to fill it with all your frustration and negative vibes and virtually burn it or break it with your mouse, trackball or tablet until your let it all out. Happy Burning of the Devil everyone!

The Library Tour: the reception desk

We will begin a mini tour of the library at the Compañí­a de Jesús building under the care of Cooperación Española NGO or Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional as it is called in Spanish.

But first the disclosure: I love libraries; even chicken bus libraries! 😉

The Roads Around Antigua Guatemala

From the Guateflora series we take a different road to show you the lush roads around La Antigua Guatemala. By the way, the roads that communicate La Antigua Guatemala with the rest of the ‘real’ Guatemala are some of the best in the country, if not the best; they are kept in better conditions than the rest of the roads around Guatemala.

The Guatemalan Flag Should Be This Blue…

Thanks to our resourceful readers now we know exactly what shade of blue should the Guatemalan Flag should be. Manolo provided us with the exact Guatemalan Congress Act 104-97, available as a PDF download, which determines the color blue as ISCC-NBS 177. Then, Manolo, who felt like procrastinating, decided that ISCC-NBS 177 was not something most people could understand as Celestial Blue, so he gave us a web site address where we could look at the specific shade of blue. He went even futher, and submitted the HTML codes #4285B4 and #4997D0 for the Guatemalan flag blue. Xensen, took this information and came back with Pantone Matching System 297 and 298 and a link to get an idea of the color. So with all this information at our disposal, we now know what the official blue should be used in the Guatemalan Flag (like the photo below). But, like I said yesterday, “… Reality dictates that the Guatemalan flag can be blue, any blue really, with or without the emblem or coat of arms.”

Framed Head in Compañí­a de Jesús

Back to the Compañí­a de Jesús building to see the photo exhibit Punto de fuga by some of my favorite photo journalists: Sandra Sebastián, Moisés Castillo and Andrea Aragón. Since I had promised to come back to this magnificent example of antigüeño architecture and show it to you, I took a few more shots. This window frame is the first of this mini-series or the continuation of the Compañí­a de Jesús building series. Either way, let me know what you think of it. Boy, La Antigua Guatemala is so full of these wonderful vistas.

Surf Shop in La Antigua Guatemala

The waves are getting closer to La Antigua Guatemala. So it is no surprise to find a “surf shop” in a Spanish colonial town embedded between coffee plantations, flower farms and volcanoes.

Actually, you can get straight down to the Pacific Ocean in about 45 to 60 minutes (depends on your safety level while driving) through one of the most beautiful stretches of road in Guatemala, known simply as Carretera 14 (road #14) and then the highway in Escuintla. Two prime beaches for surfing are Monterrico and Sipacate, both of them about two hours from La Antigua Guatemala.

The Three Arches of El Calvario Church

I am glad El Calvario Church provides a nice transition from the white cemetery series back to the rich antigüeño color palette while maintaining the death theme going on. El Calvario or Calvary (Golgotha) is the name of the mount on the outskirts of Jerusalem where it’s believe Jesus Christ was crucified. This church with its three arches provides a symbolic representation of the crucifixion; with each arch representing each cross.

Theme Day: The Color Red

Once again, La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo is participating in the theme day of the Daily Photo community. This time the theme is about the color red. Here you can see the Compañí­a de Jusús building under care of the Cooperación Española which is huge red building; one full block to be specific. This building has had many uses through history, like the home of Bernal Dí­az del Castillo, home to the Jesuits of Central America in colonial times, thus its name, and more recently it houses a public library, culture center under the administration of Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional. You can see the big entrance of the building, the interior gardens and arches and one the side wall of the ruins. I decided to photograph this building because it’s the biggest red thing in La Antigua Guatemala, but I was lucky to have a red motorcycle and a red jeep enter the viewfinder at the moment I snapped the shot; how lucky, indeed.

Holy Week Elements: The Sorrowful Mother

La Dolorosa or The Sorrowful Mother is the biblical figure of sorrowful mother Mary which follows Jesus in his way to his crucifixion. This act is represented by a smaller anda (long carved wooden flatbed image-carrying float [*]) —carrying the effigy of sorrowful Mother Mary and other female biblical representations— which is hauled exclusively by women who mostly dress in black or white as this is the appropriate dress code for a funeral. Jesus’ funeral.

Holy Week Elements: The Cross

Nevertheless, Good Friday is the culmination of the Holy Week Celebrations and the processions end at the Calvario Church (Calvario is the Spanish word for Calvary or Golgotha). The entrance of the Calvario Church in La Antigua Guatemala is a yellow façade with three arches, topped by three bells and three crosses —one larger than the other two— with a very large concrete cross in front. Can you see the obvious architectonic reference to Jesus’ crucifixion?

Name All the Tropical Fruits

One of the things I like best about La Antigua Guatemala is its location. One hour or less from Guatemala City and …

Lent Celebrations Began Today

In the Catholic realm the Holy Week Celebrations begin today with the Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Cuaresma, the Spanish …

Clown and music show

This performance was at the atrium of the Compañí­a de Jesús building. This was the house of Bernal Dí­az del Castillo and …

Compañí­a de Jesús Fountain

Compañí­a de Jesus Fountain, originally uploaded by rudygiron. Here is another example of a fountain and a patio. This is the inside …