New Year’s Eve Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala:
For starters there are many things that make New Year’s Eve similar and different than Christmas’ Eve. If Christmas’ Eve is celebrated with the family at home at your parents’ home; New Year’s Eve can be celebrated anywhere: a discotheque, a park, the beach or La Calle del Arco, a popular venue in La Antigua Guatemala
The Casa del Conde doorway is bound to bring some tears and sweet nostalgic memories to many of LAGDP visitors. See, La …
Okay, I promise this is the last shot of La Antigua Guatemala’s Central Park at night for a while. I just thought I needed to show all the angles and besides and I also wanted to show what is possible when you are walking around and the lighting conditions don’t allow for photographs to be taken without a tripod. See, thanks to the mini tripod LAGDP received from Santa Claus, a tripod is always present for those photo opts that do require a little more than a steady hand (and boy, because of all the coffee drinking I do, a steady hand is one thing I lost long time agoooooo).
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
Even smaller parks, like the one in front of the Escuela de Cristo Church, get their light dress for the Christmas season in La Antigua Guatemala. Yet the best and most expensive lighting is reserved for the Parque Central (Central Park) as you have seen in the previous days’ photos.
On the December 8th, It was Carmen who said, “Baby Jesus was put in his spot within the Nacimiento after we came back from the Misa de Gallo…” in the comments of the entry about the Nacimiento Shrine Niche at Capilla de Belén. Well, I am glad to know that our fellow readers and visitors are eager to fill in all the details and ephemerides that I leave out (out of ignorance). Follow the link if you would like to learn about Nacimientos tradition in Guatemala.
With the help of a little tripod and an out of focus shot, you can turn even the most banal and commercial Christmas tree into an awesome Christmas card. I hope you like it even though it is not to easily distinguishable as a Christmas tree.
Christmas’ Eve or Noche Buena in La Antigua Guatemala is celebrated by staying up all night burning firecracker, eating tamales or turkey and drinking real fruit punch or hot real chocolate, visiting family, friend and neighbors for the respective abrazo de Noche Buena and buenos deseos (Christmas hug and wishes); many even go to midnight mass. At midnight the presents under the Christmas tree, around the nacimiento (nativity scene), are opened and everyone laughs and hugs indiscriminately everyone around. These celebrations rate the highest on nostalgic memory scale; everyone living abroad wishes to be in Guatemala for this season and for this night in particular.
Well, what do you know, even Santa Claus pays a visit to the illuminated Central Park. LAGDP’s Santa Claus lives in Motley, Minnesota and she paid a visit earlier in December as a response to the entry where I requested support for this web site through the Amazon Wish List that I maintain for La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo. Carolyn was kind enough to wear a red fluffy dress and bring the following presents: a mini tripod, a book on Wordpress and a set of rechargeable batteries and charger.
La Antigua Guatemala’s Central Park gets a light dress for the Christmas season. If you remember some of the photos from last year, like Tree branches of Fire or Lit Branches at Central Park, you would know that taking photos of the illuminated park is quite difficult since the resulting photos hardly capture the magical atmosphere of the trees with thousands of Christmas lights. I promised I have tried my best. This year, I have a few more takes on this gorgeous light dress for the La Antigua Guatemala’s Parque Central.
Right now, the going price for tortillas is 6 tortillas per one quetzal (Q1 = US$0.13). This fact brings me to another interesting aspect about tortilla selling in Guatemala: tortillas are sold by units and not by weight, which means some tortillas could be tiny or really thin or worse yet use maseca flour in the mix. 🙁
Well, for starters you need ‘real’ nixtamalized maize dough (nothing of the maseca flour that Manolo uses), a ‘real’ comal (baked clay griddle) and you need to use ‘real’ leña (wood logs, quite possibly pine). After that, you need a good pair of hand to tortear (hit into shape) a real looking tortilla. You don’t need no sticking mold to shape your tortillas ma’am. 😉
Dobladas (turned over) is our last meal at the Virgen of Guadalupe Celebrations. Dobladas are made from nixtamalized masa (maize dough) like tortillas, but other ingredients are added before the masa dish is folded over itself and cooked. The ingredients that are added to the doblada are normally ground pork rinds, cheese, mashed potatoes, whole beans, et-cetera, but could be anything really. For instance I would like to find dobladas with cheese and loroco flowers; that would be very tasteful. Dobladas are normally fried or cooked over a comal (griddle made from cooked clay); just like tortillas. Dobladas are very similar to pupusas, except they are turned over. Check out the giant pupusas or Mayan pizza photos. Once dobladas ared cooked they are top with repollo salad (cabbage salad or coleslaw), tomato sauce and/or chile sauce (hot and spicy sauce).
Well, chiles rellenos are not just a Christmas seasonal food since they are available everyday, 24×7 in Guatemala. Last year I described Guatemalan chiles rellenos like this:
But like in anything else in life, something good emerged from such a tragic history. Fried plantains, rellenitos (fried plantain mass filled with black beans), atol de platano (plantain-based hot and thick drink) and even the wrappings of traditional Guatemalan tamal came from the banana trees. Man, I could on and on talking about bananas recipes and dishes in Guatemala like Bubba did in Forest Gump about shrimp.
