AntiguaDailyPhoto.Com

I like to photograph old people. I like to photograph young people. I like to photograph people, regardless of their age, really. I like to photograph people bonding. I like to photograph members of a family interacting, being kind to one another. That’s what life is all about.

Please, help me come up with possible things Ixchel would show to her little brother, Chepito. The most creative comment wins a post card!

Looking for Palladin Aside: In May, it will be the official showing of Looking for Palladin; a mayor movie filmed in La Antigua Guatemala and other parts of Guatemala.

Arrogant Hollywood talent agent, Josh Ross (David Moscow, is sent to Guatemala to find two-time Oscar winner actor Jack Palladin (Ben Gazzara). Although they’d never met, the search is emotionally complicated as the long-time retired star was once married to Josh’s late mother. The young agent’s contempt for the ‘old’ actor mirrors his comedic distaste for the local community, whose help he desperately needs to find him. What Josh hopes will be a quick and lucrative deal turns into a soul-searching journey. The retired star and his estranged stepson must confront the past they had forsaken (source: Looking For Palladin)

I believe this is the third or fourth time I shown you a búcaro fountain. Can you tell us now what exactly is a búcaro fountain and how many búcaro fountain photos have been shown so far?

I can remember everything about this Antigua moment except exactly where it is. All the recent discussion about water reminded me of this place.

We had been following Holy Week Processions, walking for hours or pressed into dense crowds standing under the mid-day sun inhaling dust from parched roads and the time worn pavements. Our heads were throbbing from the heady mixture of heat, sound and an intense alchemy of perfumes rising from the street—pine needles, flowery corozo palms, fruit, sawdust, and of course incense—now forever linked in my mind, with the colour purple. Tired and our senses over-stimulated by the days intensity we stepped through a doorway and into this —an Oasis of coolness and calm. It was like plunging into a deep pool of liquid shadow, and we immediately inhaled its green watery atmosphere with a deep intake of breath. A little bird had also found its way here, drinking and splashing in the fountain with evident delight, creating a perfect image of that moment.

text and photo by Michele Woodey.

The Panchoy Valley, where La Antigua Guatemala is located, used to be a lake at the time the Conquistadores arrived and when they founded the second Santiago de Guatemala in the Almolonga Valley, now Ciudad Vieja which is about two miles from Antigua. Then the Panchoy Lake basin was fed by the Pensativo River. The Panchoy Lake was filled with packed soil and stones as the third Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala was founded in 1541 and the city began to grow. The last remains of the Pensativo River can still be observed today along the Calle Chipilapa during the rainy season.

Also, both Panchoy and Almolonga valleys are surrounded by three volcanoes and mountain ranges which served as funnels during the rainy season collecting tremendous amounts of water; much more than can be consumed by all the trees and plants on the hills around La Antigua Guatemala, which by the way, remain evergreen year round.

These are some of the reasons why there’s an abundant supply of water in and around La Antigua Guatemala. This ample source, fuente in Spanish, of water can also help explain why there are thousands of fountains, fuentes in Spanish, and búcaros, half fountains embedded on walls, in and around La Antigua Guatemala. It seems like every restaurant has at least one fountain, even the fast food restaurants. You should browse the Fountains and Gardens category to see over 35 samples taken over the three years of existence and 1215 entries of AntiguaDailyPhoto. I hope you enjoy the fountain tour through time.

What an interesting combination of colors and light temperatures can be achieved during the twilight zone in La Antigua Guatemala’s Central Park. Oh I can hear the intro and fade music of the twilight zone but it’s being played with a marimba and decorated with chirimilla accents and pre-Columbian drum beats; now this music really ads a mysterious mysticism to the twilight zone. Don’t you think so?

Many times, when foreigners are looking at listings for houses or apartments for rent or sale in La Antigua Guatemala, they come across the word búcaro; which is a full stop and they simply roll their eyes. Their online live Spanish tutor did not prepare them for obscure and archaic architectonic terms; at this moment they pull out their cuaderno (notebook) and add the word to the list of things to ask the Spanish tutor in the next session.

Well, if you can not wait until your next Spanish-language class, let me tell you that a búcaro is half fountain normally embedded in a wall, normally near an inside patio, but it can be anywhere. You know, I am thinking that since búcaros can be found at just about all the restaurants and bars in La Antigua Guatemala, I might as well add búcaros to my list of things to photograph and publish as a series. Certainly, you remember the búcaro inside the Burger King restaurant, back in April 10th, 2007, right? If not, go check it out and might as well check out a garden búcaro through a fish tank.

Now, what other búcaros do you guys recommend for the upcoming búcaro series?

To answer MO’s questions: There are four identical mermaids (sirenas in Spanish), give or take the normal wear. These are not the original mermaids designed by Arquitecto Mayor Diego de Porres in 1738-1739; these are new replicas. You can find the original mermaids inside the Museo de Armas (Old Weapons Museum) right across Central Park, on the north side.

You can click the picture below to see the mermaids as they stand inside la Fuente (llamada de las sirenas) de la Plaza Mayor or Fountain (called of the sirens) at the Main Square.

September has been one of the rainiest month thus far, but you would not know it by looking at the recent daily photos, right? Well, around Guatemala’s Independence Day on September 15th, we were lucky to have a few dry days or with very little rain. Today’s capture was taken at the heart of La Antigua Guatemala’s Central Park: The Mermaids Fountain (La fuente de las sirenas). I was lucky to see that I could catch the weather conditions through the sunshine reflected on the running water of the fountain; don’t you think?

If you’re missing a little sunshine in your life, like we are know, you can always download the image above and use it as desktop wallpaper (available up to 1200×900).

By this coming weekend, the area around this fountain will be so crowded that you won’t be able to see the fountain. You can browse the archives for 2006 and 2007 to find out why there will be so many people around La Antigua Guatemala’s Central Park.

I hope you enjoy the trip back to the past!

Through our mothers’ safety zone we learn to crawl, walk, run, swim and fly! It is only fair that we assign one day out of the year to celebrate their unconditional support and the safety zone they provide for us.

In Guatemala, it is on May 10th that Mother’s Day is celebrated as “Dí­a de la Madre.”

I wish a very happy Mother’s Day to all the mommies out there and a very special Gracias to my own mother for teaching me how to be a fairly decent human being (I think! ) most of the time.

Well, you may be wondering what SAT office means. Behind this placid view of this government building hides one of the reason why Guatemala is so poor; a beggar really if we consider that Guatemala begs money for road repairing, road building, new modern national identification card, fertilizers, schools, libraries and the list goes on and on. The picture above is the local office of the Superintendencia de Administración Tributaria, SAT for short and the equivalent of the IRS.

The SAT is in charge of collecting the taxes and to funnel this money to fund all the government needs. The SAT does such a poor job at collecting taxes and thus the government is not autarkic and needs to beg for international funds. The reasons the SAT does a poor job at funding the government are complex and it would require huge and extensive entries to cover them. Suffice it to say that most Guatemalan earn their money in the informal economy, which does not pay income taxes, like town market vendors, street vendors, convenience stores, et-cetera. Then, we have the many small businesses who do not hand out facturas (invoices) for which they are charging sales tax, yet not passing this collected tax money to the SAT. Finally, we have the big businesses and wealthy Guatemalans who have very creative accounting departments to do every imaginable thing to withhold the taxes due on their accumulated fortunes; how fortunate for them! In the mean time, it is mostly the salaried workers, the independent service providers and the honest businesses who transfer the collected sales taxes and income taxes to the SAT. As you can see, tax evasion is a huge problem in Guatemala. I don’t have with me actual figures, but I am sure that less than 20% of the population pay their income taxes.

Perhaps Edgar or Mauricio can provide the actual figures and even expand on or clarify the subject.

I figured you would like to see the illuminated angels a little closer, so I took a few more shots. This one has a couple making up (you guys are voyeurs!) by the fountain and this next one you could use it as a post card since it is only the two angels slightly out of focus. I hope you enjoy them both!

Actually, it is not only La Antigua Guatemala that is a town full of contrasts, but rather the whole country. Guatemala has a rainbow of contrasts between the wealthy and the poor, the indigenous and the mestizo population, between the mountain high lands and the tropical coastal low lands, between the urban and the rural areas, between the antique and the modern, between dogs with education and homeless chuchos, and so on.

For those who have visited Guatemala, what other types of contrasts can you identify or share with us?

By the way, the first time I posted a photograph of this fountain was in June 2006. Can you tell me the exact date and the name of this building?

I have said that I really enjoy being in this building so many times that you might actually believe that I work for the PR department of Agencia Española de Cooperación International in La Antigua Guatemala. I do not, just to get it right out in the open. However, I do check out books sometimes and read magazines from Spain from the Biblioteca (library) from time to time.

Honestly, I just cherish the atmosphere of the building. On the other hand, one thing I really want to do is sit on the bench in the corner, in the other side of the fountain, for lunch and read Un paseo en primavera (ES) by Ronald Flores. I could really get on the shoes of the protagonist, a tourist guide, since I’ve been told by Maggied that I am her personal tour guide. Just wait Maggied, I am preparing your invoice. Interestingly enough, the one thing I did not want to be was a tourist guide, nor I wanted for this site to become a touristic guide; it seems I have failed at both.

For now that is not possible because of the rainfall in the afternoons. I just have to wait until I can sing Requiem for the rain again. Also, I need to get an autographed copy of Un paseo en primavera from Ronald, like my friend Juan Carlos Escobedo.

I posted a photo on June 6th with some of these exotic flowers in a truck. Now, I get the chance to present them to you in a fountain. Okay, this is the last photo I will post from Hotel Centro Colonial Antigua even though I took more and I uploaded 8 of them to my flickr account. If you care to see them, I have them in a slideshow; there is a treat for you.

Trivia: The red flowers are called camarones here. Can you guess what it means and do you the English name for these flowers?