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The second Sunday of Lent is the turn for the village of Santa Inés del Monte Pulciano. It is at this processional float when many cucuruchos from Guatemala City make their first appearance. For this procession, Nelo Mijangos took 752 photos and “only” walked 19.4 kilometers or 12 miles. You can see his route on the map below.

Do you know where is located the village of Santa Inés del Monte Pulciano?

Images by Nelo Mijangos.

Beginning with the first Sunday after Ash Wednesday, there are processions each Sunday of Lent and the first procession comes out the village of Santa Catarina Bobadilla. As always, I hand over the keys of AntiguaDailyPhoto so he can show some his best work as I know nobody more passionate about Lent and the Holy Week as Nelo Mijangos. For this first procession, Nelo walked 28.4 kilometres; that’s 17.65 miles for those who can’t gauge how long is a kilometer. Nelo told me that he took 865 photographs along those 28.4 kms. That’s a lot of photos just for one day.

Make sure you click on the images to look at a larger version to really appreciate all the details.

Each day this week, Nelo will share his most emblematic image of the procession and shared a map and distance walked by him following the processional entourage. By the way, yesterday was the 5th Sunday of Lent, so we have enough for each day this week. Stay tuned for the entire series.

images by Nelo Mijangos

The recently anointed “abuelito” to my first born, took us three (my wife, my daughter, and I) to Finca Filadelfia where we enjoyed a tour of the plantation and had a taste of the most delicious coffee we have ever had. Our tour guide, Josué, was kind and knowledgeable, taking us through the history of coffee, and to the process of its growth in La Antigua, and in Guatemala in general. These are some shots taken by my wife during our tour.

Photos Gabrielle Pagé, Text Manolo Romero Escobar

Los Fantasmas de La Antigua Guatemala

Growing up in Guatemala, I was often scared down to the bones by tales of famous Guatemalan ghosts that frightened many generations of pedestrians that braved the dark streets of the City and La Antigua. La llorona, El Cadejo, El Sombreron, among them. According to my grandparents, many of these ghosts dissapeared with the introduction of public electric lighting. On recent trips to Antigua I have walked the streets late at night, imagining that they are still around. I was happy to encounter this “friendly ghost” on a wall during broad daylight.

Reader’s contribution by Eddie Deleon (NYChapin)

READER’S CONTRIBUTIONS ASIDE: As suggested by loyal reader NYChapin, we are inaugurating the new section: Readers Contributions. If you would like to submit your contributions (title, photo and caption), please, email them to editor at antiguadailyphoto.com (no spaces and replace at for @). With this new section we all have a larger, richer dimension to the daily updates. Please, send your contributions and make AntiguaDailyPhoto a richer, polyphonic experience. Thanks!

Have a happy Guatemalan Independence Day weekend everyone. Enjoy the multimedia material I have compiled for you!

Once again, we have to thank Nelo Mijangos for sharing his photos with us.

Our regular contributor and friend Guy Howard shares his gallery of civic events for September 15 in Antigua Guatemala.

Free into the wind, your beautiful flag!

Guatemala’s National Anthem in English

Happy Guatemala, may your altar
Never be trampled by the tormentor
Nor should slaves lick the yoke
Nor should tyrants spit in your face
If tomorrow your sacred soil
Is threatened by foreign invasion
Free into the wind, your beautiful flag
To victory or death it will call
CHORUS
Free into the wind, your beautiful flag
To victory or death it will call
Since your people, with fiery soul
Will die before becoming slaves
From your old and hard chains
You forged, with an ire-driven hand,
The plow that fertilizes the soil
And the sword that saves honor.
Our fathers fought one day,
Lit up in patriotic burning
And they were able, without bloody clash,
To place you on a throne of love.
And they were able, without bloody clash,
To place you on a throne of love,
That our Nation, in energetic assent,
Gave life to the ideal redeemer.
Your emblem shows a piece of the sky
In which a cloud gets its whiteness
Wretched is he who dares in madness
stain your colors
Well, your brave and proud sons
who admire the peace within
will never avoid the rough battles
if they are to defend their land and their home.
CHORUS
They will never avoid the rough battles
if they are to defend their land and their home
that honor is the idea that reigns their souls
and the altar of the mother country their altar
Lying in the magnificent Ande
with two oceans at hearing distance
under the wing of seeds and gold
you become entranced from the beautiful quetzal
Native bird that lives in your seal
protector that protects your soil
hopefully he will fly high
more than the condor and the royal eagle!
CHORUS
Hopefully he will fly high
more than the condor and the royal eagle
and in his wings, raise up to the sky:
Guatemala, your immortal name!

Himno Nacional de Guatemala en español

¡Guatemala feliz…! que tus aras
no profanen jamás el verdugo;
ni haya esclavos que laman el yugo
ni tiranos que escupan tu faz.

Si mañana tu suelo sagrado
lo amenaza invasión extranjera,
libre al viento tu hermosa bandera
a vencer o a morir llamará.
CHORUS:
Libre al viento tu hermosa bandera
a vencer o a morir llamará;
que tu pueblo con ánima fiera
antes muerto que esclavo será.
De tus viejas y duras cadenas
tu forjaste con mano iracunda
el arado que el suelo fecunda
y la espada que salva el honor.
Nuestros padres lucharon un dí­a
encendidos en patrio ardimiento
y lograron sin choque sangriento
colocarte en un trono de amor.
CHORUS:
Y lograron sin choque sangriento
colocarte en un trono de amor,
que de Patria, en enérgico acento,
dieron vida al ideal redentor.
Es tu enseña pedazo de cielo
en que prende una nube su albura,
y ¡ay de aquel que con ciega locura,
sus colores pretenda manchar!
Pues tus hijos valientes y altivos,
que veneran la paz cual presea,
nunca esquivan la ruda pelea
si defienden su tierra y su hogar.
CHORUS:
Nunca esquivan la ruda pelea
si defienden su tierra y su hogar,
que es tan solo el honor su alma idea
y el altar de la Patria su altar.
Recostada en el Ande soberbio,
de dos mares al ruido sonoro,
bajo el ala de grana y de oro
te adormeces del bello quetzal.
Ave indiana que vive en tu escudo,
paladión que protege tu suelo;
¡ojalá que remonte su vuelo,
más que el cóndor y el águila real!
CHORUS:
¡Ojalá que remonte su vuelo,
más que el cóndor y el águila real,
y en sus alas levante hasta el cielo,
Guatemala, tu nombre inmortal!

Source: Wikipedia.org

As in previous years, even Google celebrated Guatemala’s Independence Day with a Doodle.

Torches, marathons and student marching bands parades are the main activities Guatemalans do for celebrating Independence Day. These activities usually begin manifesting on the first days of September, but around 10 or 11 is impossible not to notice them. Each activities has a reason and history as to how it became part of the Independence Day celebrations.

The torches and marathons symbolize how Doña Dolores Bedoya de Molina went to streets with a torch the night the Independence was signed to let everybody know that Guatemala was independent from Spain; Central America really since the government based in Guatemala at the time represented the land that now covers Chiapas in Mexico and Central America up to Panama. The torches and marathons were the activities I did not comprehend as being part of the Independence Day celebrations. The torches and marathons are also look down by most middle-class and well-to-to Guatemalans. The torches and marathons create traffic nightmares and havoc through the entire country as the thousands of people zig zag the country running with torches that carry the fire of the Independence back to their communities and towns. So, I asked around on Facebook to the historic reasoning for the torches.

Below are some of the answers I received. I leave them in Spanish for the benefit of those who understand Spanish or you can copy and paste them for a Google translation.

BYRON: si no mal recuerdo, la noche en que se declara la independencia de Guatemala doña Dolores Bedoya de Molina salió a recorrer las calles portando una antorcha para que todos se enteraran de la separación de Guatemala de España. según se yo de allí viene ese simbolismo durante estas fiestas patrias, espero no estar equivocado o por lo menos eso me enseñaron!!! jajjaa saludos

SOFÍA: Doña Dolores Bedoya de Molina, leal mujer, no sólo en la cocina fué la luz que en todas las esquinas, animó a toda la ciudadanía. La luz de la anotrcha, es fiesta, simboliza con noblezatoda la leal pureza, de esta gesta no sangrienta. Gracias a una mujer que aunque no pasaba desapercibida en la fragua logró a la independencia nacer.

¡Qué Dios la tenga en su Gloria ! pues de esta sabia mujer pudo la llibertad florecer gracias a Doña Dolores Bedoya!

JORGE: Por que le brindan al estudiante una sensación de amor a la patria al mismo tiempo que le otorga altos valores cívicos a los estudiantes mientras les enseña respeto por sus conciudadanos … o por que les dan puntos en educación física.

MANUEL: ¿por qué las bolsitas de agua adornan las calles y caminos? mucho sentimiento patriótico y poco patriotismo.

By the way, we have to thank Nelo Mijangos for sharing his photos with us.

The Cuaresma (Lent) period which leads into Semana Santa (Holy Week) begins every year with Miércoles de ceniza (Ash Wednesday). As in previous years, I set myself aside and let my dear friend Nelo share his excellent Cuaresma imagery since he’s quite possibly the person with most photos of Lent and the Holy Week; he’s been covering almost every Lent and Holy Week for over a decade.

Below Nelo shares different vistas of the first velación, vigil, of the Cuaresma at Iglesia de San Felipe de Jesús.

All photos by Leonel [Nelo] Mijangos