Red Lantern District

Not a farol left over from last year’s posadas. Nor indeed a house of ill repute, except perhaps with regards to the quality of Guatemalan grub to be purchased there.

For whatever a doorway in a narrow, dark alley illuminated by little red lantern might mean back where you come from, here it means ‘come buy our tamales‘. Or as the locals might say: un lugar de chuchos… no para chuchos. It’s a sight you are most likely to see on a Saturday evening; a traditional time for tamal consumption.

Similarly, whenever you see a house in La Antigua with a red flag flying above the doorway, think not that its occupants are bravely holding out for an increasingly unlikely sort of radical social shake-up, for this is in fact the kind of place where carnivores will encounter choice cuts of red meat (carne de res). So, not particularly right on! at all.

text and photo by Guy Howard.

About Guest Contributor: Guy Howard is a writer/blogger, digital media consultant, native Londoner, media analyst and private investor who this month celebrates the twentieth anniversary of his first visit to La Antigua Guatemala. Married to the local girl he met back then, he and his girlfriend have maintained a house in the city since the end of the last millennium.

© 2009 – 2020, Guy Howard. All rights reserved.