Calle del Arco is the place to be on the weekends in Antigua Guatemala if you want to listen to live music. For sure you can find live marimba music, either Maya or traditional Guatemalan songs, but sometimes you find blues, jazz or urban rock ensembles. This was the case for the past weekend.
Below you can watch a short video clip, if you can provide the name of the song, you win a post card. Good luck! (more…)
Poinsettias or Flor de Pascua are in full bloom in The Land of the Eternal Spring for the Christmas season. The most common color is red, but now you can find yellow, white, pink and mixed at your local nursery and shops. Pascuas are an integral part of the Guatemalan decoration for the Christmas season and beyond. They are also given as gifts quite often.
An archived article at Prensa Libre entitled: Pascuas que cambian de colores (Poinsettias of different colors) I read that, according to industry statistics, Guatemala is the top grower of poinsettias in the world. Guatemala produces 60 million poinsettias which represents 80% of the production in the world.
I believe life should be about giving instead of receiving, especially so around Christmas, thus here are my first offerings for the season. First a video clip from my favorite Guatemalan artist Gaby Moreno singing about Christmas time. Next you will find a link to download a wallpaper for your computer, iPad, tablet or mobile device. Enjoy!
If you would like to have a yellow poinsettias wallpaper for you computer, download it from here.
Here’s the strawberry fields forever ambulant vendor. Everyday he picks the fields to bring the freshest fresas to Antigua Guatemala. Basket in hand, he walks around town displaying the most delicious strawberries. In his back he carries the never-ending supply of strawberries.
(more…)
There was a plantón, sort of an occupy protest, called for many civil organizations to disrupt and put an end to the plans of making the newly restored Palacio de los Capitanes Generales into a commercial center. The palace is now under the control of Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes which has plans of renting some of the spaces for commercial venues, like a coffee shop. If allowed, the Ministry of “Culture” could turn this historic and protected building into a shopping mall, the protesters claimed.
I have reported before that there were plans to make Palacio de los Capitanes the new location for Museo de Santiago, which is the city and departamento’s museum. Museo de Armas de Santiago was, and still is for now, located next to the Municipal government offices; perhaps on the same building and that’s where the original mermaids were on display.
What do you think about turning historic buildings into commercial centers?
Here’s the background information about the restoration works:
After two and half years and Q16 millions/$2 millions spent in renovations Palacio de Los Capitanes has finally opened again. The new façade is painted with yellow and white paint. According to an article in Prensa Libre, CNPAG, the entity in charge of restoring and protecting La Antigua Guatemala, also removed 15 tons of extra weight. There is still a second restoration phase quoted at Q14 million more to be done.
If you’re interested in looking at the façade of Palacio de Los Capitanes before the renovations, please follow the white rabbit to the Palacio de Los Capitanes archives.
Oh I want one of these classic Volkswagen Beetles with white tires and chromed bumpers. Who wouldn’t really. Anyway, to finish the work week I am sharing the happy song Carcachita by Roberto Carlos. There’s also a short video clip of a 360 degree vista around Parque Central this morning. Enjoy! (more…)
Yes, perspective is everything!
If you don’t believe me compare the Tea Partiers and the Occupy Wall Street movement, since both share some similarities on the surface, but represent opposite world views as shown in this article from Aljazeera: Tea Partiers: The self-hating 99 per cent.
There may be surface similarities between the two uprisings, but they actually represent two opposing populist world views, whose only philosophical resemblance to one another is their belief that they speak for “the people” against the elites. While both movements are mainly concerned with economic issues, their beliefs about the causes and solutions they propose couldn’t be more different… continue reading at Aljazeera.
Huh, and you thought that we were sheltered against world events news in our beautiful, tranquil and enchanting little corner. We also heard about the recent rescue of the Belgian-French bank Dexia, which could be the first domino to fall in a replay of the 2008 recession.
Perhaps you should visit Guatemala and enjoy the end of the world as we know it. 
See, perspective Is everything!
Watching the world-famous mime Tamagochy yanking smiles and laughs from the audience formed around his “maleta de la alegría” (happiness suitcase) I thought of the wonderful song “Garrick” composed and sang by the extraordinaire Guatemalan artist Gaby Moreno. You do remember Gaby Moreno, right? I shared a Gaby Moreno song and video with you in the Nostalgia Triggers post.
Below you will find the lyrics and video for the song Garrick by Gaby Moreno who was inspired in the poem Reir llorando (Garrick) by Juan de Dios Peza.
Can anybody help translating the lyrics for Garrick?
Yo vi la función
Fui testigo de aquella ovación
Eran mil, talvez más
Sin sospechar jamás
Sufrían del spleen
Escapaban de un ocio sin fin
El remedio infalible
Era ver al gran GarrickMarionetas saltan y las ponen a bailar
Empieza la comedia y todos ríen sin parar
Ja, ja, ja, jaAl poco tiempo un señor
Ante un médico se presentó
Su mirada oscura y triste decía
Que moría por morir
Siguió una larga interrogación
Y al ver que nada le causaba emoción
El médico exclamó
Tu mal se ha de extinguir
Al ver al gran GarrickMarionetas saltan y las ponen a bailar
Empieza la comedia y todos ríen sin parar
Ja, ja, ja, ja
El hombre sonrió
Con ojos húmedos:
“Yo no me curo así…
Yo soy Garrick!”
The other day while I waited for the fresh and hot tortillas to come out of the comal I noticed an orange peeler, the typical kind found in Guatemala and I could not help myself and snatch a photo with the iPhone, my new notebook dairy. As I took the shot with the iPhone a rush of memories came down on me about school days and having peeled oranges with powder pepitoria (squash seeds) and chile and laughing, laughing a lot with my friends. It is interesting and amazing to me what things trigger the memory and the nostalgia feelings.
What’s the most unusual nostalgia/memory trigger you have come across?
El otro día mientras esperaba que salieran las tortillas frescas y calientitas del comal me detengo a ver el pelador de naranjas, el típico encontrado por toda Guatemala, y decidí tomarle una foto con el iPhone, mi nuevo cuaderno de apuntes. En el momento que tomé la foto, se me viene encima una lluvia de recuerdos y nostalgia de las naranjas con pepitoria y chile después de clases con los amigos y las risas, muchas risas. Siempre me ha llamado la atención que nos detona los recuerdos y sentimientos de nostalgia.
¿Cuál ha sido el detonador de recuerdos más inusual con que te has topado?
Today AntiguaDailyPhoto.com is celebrating its fifth anniversary. Also, the CityDailyPhoto community around the world is having the monthly theme day which is Mailbox. So I thought it would be a good idea to participate in the theme day and at the same time request a post card or letter mailed from your home town.
Feed me, the letter slot says!
This is a follow up experiment to the Postscript test we ran back in 2007, when we wanted to test how efficient was the regular Guatemalan Postal Service. To our surprise we receive several dozen post cards and letter from many cities around the world. The first post cards arrive within 10 days and the last one we received was about six months later.
We were delighted by the kind words and to see postal stamps from many cities and countries. So, if you appreciate the work we do at AntiguaDailyPhoto and want to show it or simply participate in testing the snail mail system, please, send a post card or letter from wherever you find yourself now to the address below:
RUDY GIRON
P.O. BOX 139 EL CORREO
LA ANTIGUA GUATEMALA, C.P. 03001
GUATEMALA, C.A.
For the fifth anniversary (1,827 consecutive days) I am happy to report that the AntiguaDailyPhoto concept has expanded to Quetzaltenago, the city in the highlands (Los Altos we call it), with its XelaDailyPhoto and to Guatemala City and the rest of the country with GuatemalaDailyPhoto. To me there is no greater satisfaction than to be able to help others, to lend a hand and to provide all the support necessary to my fellow daily photo colleagues. Of course, none of it would be possible without the support from my wife, family and friends. A big THANK YOU for all their and your support!
Previous anniversaries Aside: Below, I share with you the music of Ishto Jueves, a Guatemalan musician I got the chance to meet and hear recently. Further down, summaries of my thoughts and feelings from the previous anniversaries. Enjoy!
On the first anniversary of AntiguaDailyPhoto I shared my goals with you:
My idea was to show the good, the bad and the ugly of this colonial town. I did not want to make a touristic site for the most popular touristic destination in Central America. La Antigua Guatemala is photogenic, so my goal has been a bit difficult. But I have tried to show other aspects of life which I did not see cover in other sites. Also, I wanted to ‘own’ a venue for practicing my inadequate written English and amateur photographic skills. Three hundred and seventy-six posts later I have improved neither; it’s so pathetic. On the other hand, I have gained a great deal of knowledge about this town and many good friends (even if they don’t see eye-to-eye on the issues we talked about here). What can I say, they’re are all wrong!
On the second anniversary of AntiguaDailyPhoto I reflected upon the concept of milestones:
Every time humans arrive at a milestone, we tend to review what we have traveled thus far. Two years of consecutive blogging is not much or even important in the big scale of things. Nonetheless, it is a big achievement for me since I have never done anything like this before. I am very happy to have reached this time mark and to have helped others in the process. I thank all my regular visitors for your support, comments, feedback and donations.
On the third year, AntiguaDailyPhoto became polyphonic with new guest author contributions which enriched and enhanced the blogumentary. Each guest author brought wonderful new perspective, photography and style. I was honored to have been given their trust. Also, I was happy to have opened the doors of AntiguaDailyPhoto to guest contributors.
For the fourth anniversary I ask again the following questions:
what does AntiguaDailyPhoto mean to you? What kind of themes you care about? Do you prefer entries with lots of information or just the picture and a brief caption? Do you care for music, videos and maps that accompany the photos and information? Have you had enough food images? Should I leave out all the controversial and politics out? Should I focus more or less on the people, landscape, animals, idiosyncrasies of Guatemalans? What else should I be asking?
To see how others in the City Daily Photo community have interpreted today’s theme please click here to view thumbnails for all participants around the globe.
The Santo Domingo del Cerro hosted a Baroque music concert on Palm Sunday, and well, after Nelo’s wonderful work on Processions, perhaps it is just a different post this time.
Going to these kinds of concerts is always an experience, and more so when you know one of the Concertistas. It was Carolina Palomo the one I knew, a good friend and for random reasons I had never ever heard her play. When music was about begin, I closed my eyes and let the music open them. Some minutes later I found myself grabbing my camera and to just shoot. I didn’t want to use flash because the concert was being videotaped, and most importantly the flash could distract the concertistas. Even so, some people were still using flash, so the decision of sacrificing ISO versus flash was not hard to make.
The music was life in every single breath, meaning the performance and the ambience of the place, was almost surreal. Some kilometers away I bet Nelo was taking photographs, and I thought that next time I’d photograph a procession, my ipod would make good company, so perhaps the music could help me get some cool shots like Nelo’s. 
After the wonderful concert, we shared some lovely conversations with the musicians and some of their friends. All of them are just amazing and lovely people; they enjoy being part of the Ensamble Antiqua (yes, with a “q”).
How many times have you been in a baroque music concert?
text and photos by Arturo Godoy.
The Municipal Band Friday recitals is another reason why Parque Central is my favorite part of town. What can I say, I am a melómano; which is your Spanish word of the day.
What is your favorite part of La Antigua Guatemala?
Street music calls for everyone. It is not privileged or costly. Any passers-by is invited to enjoy it fully. So these two persons response was to dance to it.
text and photo by Pinar Istek
12. Colorful Guatemalan Balls, 11. Cathedral Spot Lights Zooming, 10. Sunday Mornings Begin with Coffee and Online Newspapers, 09. The Ages of Coffee, 08. Vive tu vida y deja vivir, 07. Antigua’s Bright Red, 06. Antigua Fragments, 05. Typical Guatemalan Breakfast, 04. A Colonial Church Within My Fingers, 03. The Cucurucho and The Photographer, 02. Moon lit cupolas, 01. Colorful Guatemala Revisited
As I have mentioned before, any “top list” is bound to be subjective and there can be as many top lists as there are people to make them. So with this in mind, I present you: my Top 12 Photos of 2010. I just selected a photo for each month of 2010 and that’s how I arrived at these 12 photos.
I am certain YOU also have a list favorite of photos or entries for 2010. Please, share with us which photos or entries were your top 12 and let us know what was your criteria to arrive at your Top 12 Entries of AntiguaDailyPhoto. Thanks for sharing your top 12 with us.
New Year’s Eve Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala:
There are many things that make New Year’s Eve similar yet different than Noche Buena. Christmas Eve is celebrated with the family at home or at your parents’ home; New Year’s Eve can be celebrated anywhere: a discotheque, a park, the beach or La Calle del Arco and Parque Central will be the popular venues in La Antigua Guatemala tonight. New Year’s Eve is less religious than Christmas’ Eve and there are many more parties to go to.
There is a particular song which is played at every single party and danced to… El Año Viejo. There’s a fragment of the song below to get you started singing. Further down, I leave you the most famous version of El Año Viejo by Tony Camargo. This song is quite possibly the most-often-played track throughout Latin America on New Year’s Eve.
My best wishes to everyone and please have the happiest New Year Celebration Ever!
Yo no olvido al año viejo (I don’t forget the old year)
Porque me ha dejado cosas muy buenas: (Because it left behind good things for me:)
Me dejó una chiva, (It left me a goat,)
Una burra negra, (a black donkey)
Una yegua blanca (a white female horse)
Y una buena suegra… (And a good mother-in-law…)
La quema del diablo (Burning of the Devil) used to be this tradition, little known outside of Guatemala. I say “used to be” since the Burning of the Devil is now all over the Internet. I have a tiny share of responsibility because I’ve been promoting this tradition every year since 2006.
While glancing through all the different articles about the Burning of the Devil, I noticed that sometimes they have even quoted me directly in some of the articles or simply paraphrase some of the information I have published in the past. It’s good to know that AntiguaDailyPhoto is also a valuable source of information about Guatemala.
Here are some of the articles about the Burning of the Devil tradition:
The devil’s “will” is read: He leaves his greed to a wealthy local merchant and his manipulative skills to a prominent local politician, drawing hoots and guffaws from the crowd. Officials are rarely named, says Rudy Girón, an Antigua resident and editor of AntiguaDailyPhoto.com, but everyone knows whom the devil is talking about. “It’s humor-double-meaning speech making sure people know who’s being criticized without actually calling any names,” he says…
(Continue reading Run, Devil, Run by Michael Shapiro at American Way Magazine)
The tradition of burning the devil began in colonial times. In anticipation of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, those who could afford it adorned the fronts of their houses with lanterns. Eventually, the poor who could not afford such lanterns began gathering their garbage and would burn all of the year’s rubbish in front of their houses. Over time it was formalized and in addition to individual piles of garbage, communities started to burn The Devil to clear the way for Mary’s feast…
(Continue reading A Year’s Worth Of Sins Went Up In Smoke by Luke Maguire Armstrong at The Expeditioner)
Guatemala has just celebrated a beloved tradition: la quema del diablo, the burning of the devil. Across the country, people lit bonfires and burned images of Satan as a way to symbolically cleanse their houses. The government thinks this custom has gone too far. NPR’s John Burnett sent this postcard from Guatemala City…
(Continue reading Guatemalan Official: Burning Devil Dirties The Air by John Burnett at NPR)
One tradition that certainly puts our spring cleaning to shame is Quema del Diablo, or the Burning of the Devil, which takes place every December in Guatemala. Guatemalans have long believed that the Devil lurks in the dark and dusty corners of the house and in garbage, so every year before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8), people sweep him out of their houses and chase him off by burning their household refuse in bonfires topped by effigies of the Devil.
Marimba bands and fireworks add to the festivities. Some of the biggest celebrations are in Antigua and Guatemala City.
In Ciudad Vieja, a Devil three stories high is set alight in the city square at the stroke of six. Quema del Diablo is just one of the 192 unusual happenings described in the Lonely Planet guide, “A Year of Festivals.”
(source: World’s Strangest Holiday Traditions at AOL)
I want to say how much I appreciate your blog! I lived in Guatemala for a year (in 2007) and I miss it a lot. My husband and I lived about an hour from Puerto Barrios and there was not much to do in the town we spent the majority of our time in. Every time we had a chance to get to Antigua, we were there! It really became our hometown in Guatemala. Once in a while, when I’m really wishing I could be there again, I find my way back to your blog and spend an hour or so looking through posts and feeling very nostalgic. It’s nice to be able to have a little insight into what’s currently going on in Antigua and around Guatemala. So, thanks! —Sarah Hiltz
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