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If there ever it was a place where abandonment looks good that would be La Antigua Guatemala, which by the way is city taken out of 1773 and it is possible today because it was abandoned, or rather people were forced to abandon it.

Anyways, most of the ruins and old monasteries still looked abandoned, with cracks, broken arches, fallen down cupolas, rusted metalworks, chipped paint layers, et cetera. Basically, half the city looks like is in ruins and it is, but that’s precisely appealing architectonic aesthetics of La Antigua Guatemala, don’t you agree?

What other details would list as part of the architectonic aesthetics of abandonment of Antigua Guatemala?

Okay, I will tell you, but please don’t go telling everyone about it. In Guatemala we have a rainy season that lasts between six and seven months. Also, Guatemala has vast amounts of underground waterbeds; is this they correct term? Check out the Water Series for many of the different angles of water in Guatemala. Furthermore, Guatemala is geographically located in the Tropics, although it is hard to realize this unless you spend most of the time on beaches and coastal areas, and that’s why the humidity on the atmosphere is very high, especially during the rainy season. All this water makes Guatemala so green. Okay, please, don’t tell anyone, it’s our own little secret.

By the way, the photo was taken in my garden after a heavy rain yesterday.

La Antigua Guatemala has an antique aesthetic beauty which goes beyond the colonial architecture and the gorgeous wood and metal works. Antique items as mundane as coffee grinder find their way into the homes and business of Antigua Guatemala. I have also seen antique keys, locks, clocks, and decoration artifact as part of the aesthetic of Antigua Guatemala.

I know am skipping so many things, what other antique items have you seen while strolling around Antigua Guatemala?

Soon the cloud-free dark blue skies will be nothing but a memory and gray skies and rainy days will be the norm until November. Ni modo, that’s what it is and we better get used to it.

Anyhow, Guatemala is the land of the eternal Spring because everything is so green and flowering year round. Guatemala is also in the northern hemisphere and thus we have the same seasons at the same time as the big countries up north. In other words, Guatemala entered the Spring season about a month ago and Summer will arrive on June 21. However, Guatemala is also located in the tropic region, and the seasons just get fuzzy and blurry. Thus people in Guatemala refer to the rainy season as Invierno (Winter) even though the rainy season falls during Spring, Summer and Autumn. The dry season is known as Verano (Summer) regardless of whether the weather is chilly and sometimes cold because of the winter wings that blow from the north.

So, are you confused yet Invierno and Verano?

In Guatemala there are public schools for girls, para niñas, for boys, para varones, and mix, mixtas. The same, of course, applies for private schools.

How about where you live, do you have public schools just for girls?

Here’s sneak peak at what’s inside a house in the village of San Pedro Escobar. As you can see, there’s a horse and two chickens. I wonder how many house might have a horse, dogs, cats and chicken within the house?

One of the benefits of living in the villages of La Antigua Guatemala is that many of the neighbors sell their excess of freshly-picked fruits and veggies from their back yard orchard. As shown in the picture, avocados are very inexpensive, just Q1 to Q1.50 ($0.12 to $0.18); with these prices it’s no wonder that antiüeños are known as pansas verdes (green bellies).

What other fruits and vegetables do think people grown in their home orchards?

Some of you might recall that fresh tortillas are available three times a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Well, fresh bread is baked twice a day for breakfast and dinner. Tortillas or bread baked in the morning is considered old by noon. Of course, because these tortillas and bread are prepared so often and without preservatives, they go bad in a couple of days without refrigeration.

Do you know when was your bread or tortillas made?

Believe it or not, with the ecological clothesline is how most Guatemalans dry their clothes. At least in this particular case, Guatemala’s carbon footprint is small.

Check out Topless on GuatemalaDailyPhoto.com for a different twist on drying clothes.

What’s the most often used method to dry clothes where you live?

Sometimes it feels like the jacaranda trees begin flowering to coincide with the Cuaresma to add the natural purple to the 40 days of Lent.

• Jacaranda Tree at Central Park
• Jacarandas at Central Park
• Jacarandas Trees Wear Violet for Lent

Do you know why purple is the official color of the Lent season? Do a search in the archives for the answer.

When is boulder not a boulder? When a boulder is for a climbing competition. Such was the case today when there was a man-made boulder climbing challenge right in front of Palacio de los Capitanes. There were be 14 competitors from Guatemala, 10 men and 4 women, 8 from El Salvador, 5 from Costa Rica and 2 from Honduras according to Felipe Álvarez, one of the organizers. Among the competitors there were Guatemalan champions Paula Mendez and Diego García, both members of the Asociación de Alpinismo de Sacatepéquez based here in La Antigua Guatemala. For additional photos visit the Revue. I decided to focus in the details of a part of the artificial boulder.

As published last year, these colorful Guatemalan cascarones [eggshells] filled with confetti are known as cascarones de carnaval [carnival] and they mark the arrival of carnaval and then Ash Wednesday (Miércoles de ceniza), which is the first day of Lent (Cuaresma). That’s right folks, on Wednesday we will begin the count down to The World Famous Holy Week in Antigua Guatemala, top city travel destination.

I believe the best way to explain cascarones, carnaval (carnival) and Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is to quote some of the AntiguaDailyPhoto readers.

Manolo:
Cascarones are literally egg shells. So, as some have said, weeks in advance every egg cooked at home is carefully cracked so that most of the shape of the egg is kept intact and left to dry. Then, before Carnival Tuesday (the day previous Ash Wednesday which is the first day of Lent) the empty egg shells are filled with confetti (mainly very little pieces of tissue paper, but sometimes metallic paper and in olden times flour), and then are sealed with a piece of tissue paper and glue. I guess it depends on each person, but the egg shells are decorated before or after being filled using watercolours or tempera (some sort of finger paint) or even markers. Not quite like Easter Eggs because they mark the beginning of Lent, not the end of it, and they have no actual egg inside.

What do we do with cascarones? Well, young people (i.e. children and/or children at heart) smash them on the heads of unsuspected victims. Since there is usually a costume party involved with Carnival you don’t know who your victimizer is. The confetti gets inside the back of your shirt along with pieces of egg shell and your hair is also a mess (particularly if you have curly hair). Is the last day you are allowed to be a brat before the 40 days of behaving start.

Pues, I have learned something new since last year, “carnival Tuesday” is “Fat Tuesday”/”Mardi Gras”. Carnival comes from “Carne” (flesh/meat) and it is called that way because it is the last day you can eat meat before Lent.

Claudia:
Love carnaval. My mom would start saving eggshells weeks in advance and she would dry them out, we would usually decorate them ourselves in school. I used to get blisters on my fingers from the scissors since we tried to make our confetti as small and tiny as possible, to make it harder to wash out of your hair, of course.

Sompopo:
Head smashing fun.

Carmen:
Oh my! I’m getting flashbacks. We used to run after each other at school with these cascarones as ammunition. Of course, with all the commotion, we were also responsible for cleaning up afterward. I got such joy from smashing a cascaron on someone’s head. Heehee. The fun was not the same when someone smashed a cascaron on my head though. I remember some of the teachers got into the action as well.

Javier:
Wow!!!Memories!!!Cascarones haven’t seen those in 26 years. We use to make them ourselves as kids. And smash them on other kids heads. It was great.

Elvia:
I remember when I was a child, my mother, sisters and I would start saving the egg shells around 3 months in advance, we would wash them gently and let them dry. It was so much fun to paint each cascaron and put pica pica inside… I remember one of my best carnavales I was probably 7 and I was dressed as strawberry shortcake, it was just awesome my mother sew the costume for me. The carnival season is a very nice tradition in my country of origin, my linda Guatemala!

In Guatemala Valentine’s Day has a much wider meaning since Día del cariño, Day of affection or caring, is about celebrating all the different manifestations of love and caring.

Let the Blues Brothers bring the message of Día del cariño on the eve of this special date in Guatemala because everybody needs somebody to love; don’t you agree?

If we are what we eat, then this is what Guatemalans are made of. The vegetables above the most often found in the Guatemalan diet.

How many of these vegetable are part of the diet where you live?

Si somos lo que comemos, entonces los guatemaltecos estamos hechos de estas verduras, las cuales son las encontradas con más frecuencia en al dieta chapina.

¿Cuántas de estas verduras están en tu dieta?

These news may come as total shock to some of you, but I figure today is as good day as any to let you know that because of Antigua Guatemala’s preservation and protection laws there can not be parking meters. Believe me that’s a good thing. However the municipal government may not agree with me since that means they lose yet another way to tax us. Well, that’s how it used to be until not too long ago when a mayor realized that the city could by law charge for parking without installing the parking meters. Nevertheless, the government officials knew that they could not pass the legislation needed if they tax the people who actually live here. I know city governments all over the world do charge for public parking to its own neighbors, but trust me when I say this could not be possible in Antigua Guatemala. Thus, they created these parking permit decals for antigüeños that go on your front windshield and pretty much exempts your from having to pay the Q10 per day for parking as everyone else. Once a year you have to go to the transit or treasure department and prove that you live here by way of showing your DPI (Guatemala’s national ID) or the title of your property, the circulation cards for your vehicles and show your boleto de ornato (decoration ticket) which is a variable obligatory tax that Guatemalans must pay every year to their local municipality. Ornato is Guatemalan Spanish for the aesthetic or beauty of town or place.

And with today’s entry we begin a mini series about the parking problems of Antigua Guatemala. Each day I will bring different issues regarding the parking situation of Antigua Guatemala.

Día de la Candelaria (Candlemas) Aside: Around Antigua Guatemala, many people keep their Nacimientos and Christmas decorations until February 2nd, Día de la Candelaria (Candlemas), which incidentally is Groundhog Day in the United States. The day after February 2nd the Christmas lights around Antigua’s Main Plaza will be pick up and put away.

Now it’s time to begin preparation for Carnival first, and then Lent which begins on Ash Wednesday.