Vehicles – Page 2 – AntiguaDailyPhoto.Com

Guarding The Coke

Guatemala is a gun-crazy country. Everywhere you look there are men with guns. There are even signs forbidding to carry the naked …

A Motorized Boost for Bicyclists

Reading the New York Times Sunday supplement that comes with Prensa Libre, I learnt about a revolution is taken place without making …

The Bicycle Culture of Antigua Guatemala

One of the things that most people notice when they get to La Antigua Guatemala is the large quantity, critical mass really, …

Theme Day: Waiting

Since La Antigua is the wedding capital of Guatemala and very often used as wedding destination for couples the world over, it …

New Street Sweepers in Antigua

The classic image of the old man with his “chiribisco” broom sweeping parks and streets of La Antigua Guatemala is vanishing. The …

Produce Delivery

I know that one can go every day to the mercado, market, in La Antigua Guatemala for fresh produce and that if …

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, …

2 Sí

Back in April the Guatemalan government, following the lead taken by Colombia and Venezuela some years ago, issued the Ley de Transito-Motocicletas …

The Nun and The Limousine

It is quite common to see nuns and priests walking around La Antigua Guatemala since this town is basically almost 100% Catholic. …

Only in LAG: Motorcycle clamps

Surely you remember the photo of Clamping the automobiles on the No parking zone, right? Or how about the story of two …

Jacarandas Trees Wear Violet for Lent

It seems like even Jacaranda trees want to be seen wearing the ever-present violet and purple color found over doorways, windows and …

Chicken Bus Chronicles: El Ayudante

Ayudante is title for the guy in the orange shirt. El ayudante, the helper or assistant has in reality many jobs and …

Chicken Bus Chronicles: The Groceries

Sometimes things are so obvious that one doesn’t mull over them; that’s the way things are and you accept it. While taking …

Chicken Bus Chronicles: DVD Players

The world infamous chicken bus reinvents itself again. The chicken bus that was born out of a retired school bus from our …

Gas Tanks are Ugly Too

This is what Guatemalans think of when you utter Tanques de gas (gas tanks); it doesn’t cross their mind the fuel tank …

Billboards and Large Banners and Signs are Prohibited in Antigua

Somethings or their absence, really, make the lifestyle of La Antigua Guatemala very pleasant. The absence of billboards, banners and large signs …

Antigua Guatemala Funeral

When I was eighteen I worked for a senile old man who had been a famous race driver in the 1940-70. Very …

Buying the Afternoon Delivery Guatemalan Bread

Somethings are changing in the Guatemalan lifestyle. Others, luckily, remain the same, like hot-just-out-of-the-oven bread delivery in the rainy afternoons in La …

Chicken Bus Terminal in La Antigua Guatemala

Certainly there are other kind of buses in Guatemala, so, please can someone explain it to me, what is the fascination that …

The Tiny Story of Discrimination, Arrogance and Patronizing in La Antigua Guatemala

ACT 1: So there I was, consumed by own thoughts, after having had a few moments at the Benches at the Museo …

What are you looking at?

There is a “real” story of discrimination, arrogance and patronizing behind today’s photo. If at least ten (10) people request it, I …

From Blue Bird to Green Quetzal

The typical Guatemalan camioneta (public transit bus or chicken bus for those who like the colourful derogatory term) is based on an …

Fuel Home Delivery in La Antigua Guatemala

Other colonial measurements still in use in present-day Guatemala are: Una mano (one hand or five of anything), un manojo (a bunch), una libra (a pound; this one may hurt many of you, but for sure, the civilized world now uses the kilo), una picopada (a truckload), una fila de frances (a row of french rolls), una arroba (@ or 25 pounds) un quintal (100 pounds), una cuerda (a cord equals 1/6 of city block), una medida (a measurement of whatever fits inside a small can or basket), una penca de banano (that’s a banana cluster), et-cetera or basically that’s what I can remember right now. I am sure the Guatemalans visitors will share other colonial measurements being used in Guatemala. There was a recent article about colonial measurement in Prensa Libre’s Revista Domingo under the title of Costumbres que pesan {ñ}.

Meeting of the Central American Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Riders

Well, between precessions, a jazz festival and a Central American meeting for Harley-Davidson motorcycle riders, La Antigua has been anything but a …

What’s killing La Antigua Guatemala

The cobblestone streets of La Antigua Guatemala were originally designed for horses and horse-carriages. So, it is no wonder that even light vehicles, like cars, create a lot of damage to the streets which, therefore, need constant repairing. Now you can imagine that huge and heavy trucks like the ones pictured above not only damage the streets, but the foundation of the houses and the city itself.

Mobile Advertising Invades La Antigua Guatemala

I don’t know who had the bright idea to rent the clean body of almost-new vehicles for advertising, but many vehicles receive …

Marimba Orquesta Chicken Bus Ave Lira

Like Manolo said, with Marimba music as the background for many parties and celebrations around La Antigua Guatemala and the rest of the country, I can almost smell the pine needles under my feet and the tamales and ponche (fruit punch) in the air. Oh what memories… sometimes I even wish I could like this type of music. 🙁

Marimba Chicken Bus and Church of San Pedro

Well, well, what we have here… what’s up with that, why are Guatemalans so enchanted with the infamous chicken bus. I mean what makes Guatemalans take on the crappy junk and retired school buses from up north and give them a second life as public transit chicken bus, mobile libraries chicken bus and now as a marimba orquesta mobile unit chicken bus.

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.

Chicken Buses are The Second Life of School Buses

Unless you have taken the path of La Marche de l’empereur, you haven’t heard about how everyone is living a virtual second life through a community web site. Well, old and retired school buses from the U.S. get to live a real second life as camionetas (the street name for public transit buses in Guatemala). Revue Magazine had an in-depth article about The Birth of a Camioneta (available as a PDF download) which detailed step-by-step how an old retired school bus became a powerful camioneta ready for the curvy roads of the mountain ranges of Guatemala.

Wanted: New Mayor for La Antigua Guatemala

Calzada Santa Lucía gets overcrowded with all the stands of the 11 candidates for the La Antigua Guatemala City Hall or Muni as we call it here. They all have their booths, their chants and songs, their promises, their colors, their flyers, their visual and hearing pollution, their trash, et-cetera.

Chicken Bus and the Driver’s Assistant

Guate, Guate, Guate… vamos vaciooossss!

That is what you hear the chicken bus driver’s helper yell out as the omnibus makes its way back into Guatemala City. But there are all kinds of yellings: Antigua, Antigua, Chimal, Chimal, Chichi, Chichi, Xela, Xela and so on.

Guate, Guate, Guate… vamos vaciooossss! Guatemala, Guatemala, Guatemala, we are empty is what the driver’s ayudante (helper) would yell out if they are full, like this.

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.

Very Strong and Long Earthquake Hits Guatemala

Clamping the Automobiles on the No-parking Zone

Just about all the streets in La Antigua Guatemala are one-way venues and you can only park on one side of the …

Fine for a Family of Four

This reckless image can be seen often in La Antigua Guatemala, where motorcycles are fast becoming the most popular vehicle (thanks to …

If you read, you succeed

The bibliobuses’ route takes them around Sacatepequez, that is the name of the State where La Antigua Guatemala is located—called Departamentos in Guatemala, visiting the villages around La Antigua for two hour per stop and returning every week. So kids with no access to public libraries, get the chance to read and check out the material in the mobile library chicken buses once a week. Here is the side view with the contact information of Probigua and their motto: Please Help Us to Help!

We Move Books!

The back of the mobile library chicken bus has even the same typography and three-step color gradient as the public transportation buses. …

Inside the Mobile Library Chicken Bus

Some of you have asked to update yesterday’s entry about the Mobile Library Chicken Bus with information on how to help and how to send donations. Come on people, you did not think I was going to left the entry about bibliobuses there, right? I have three more photos to go, one per day, as that is our agreement. I will be posting all this information for you to help and donate to such worthy project.

Mobile Library Chicken Bus

Here is an interesting twist for the infamous chicken bus. Turn it into a bibliobús or mobile library bus so you can take the books to the communities that lack a library. For now, they have two bibliobuses, but I believe they will need a whole fleet to cover all the communities that do not have a library in Guatemala.

Now I know where I will be donating my next batch of books. The two mobile library buses belong to the Non-Government Organization (NGO) Probigua, which stands for Proyecto Bibliotecas Guatemala (Libraries Project of Guatemala). Come back in the next few days to learn more about the project and to see the inside of a “chicken bus”.

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