Here is better overview of the La Ermita de la Santa Cruz ruins and the trees that hug it. Also, you can see more students practicing for the big marching band competition which I believe will be next week. I will try to take a few snapshots for you and maybe a video clip. Thanks … Read more
While driving over Calle Chipilapa, I was lucky several school marching bands practicing for an upcoming student band competition in La Antigua Guatemala. In the background you can see La Ermita de la Santa Cruz Ruins, a popular venue for music concerts. I published a rather plain photo of La Ermita before on July 19th, … Read more
Ermita de la Santa Cruz Ruins, originally uploaded by rudygiron. On June 29th I posted a photo of Charly García on concert in Antigua Guatemala. Well, then I mentioned that Antigua is used as natural venue for concerts, jazz festivals, classical music recitals. The venue they use most often for concerts is La Ermita de … Read more
I have said it before and I am repeating again here, 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 … Read more
Last night was the presentation of Vocal People at Ermita de la Santa Cruz ruins, Antigua Guatemala’s concert venue, as part of the XII Festival Internacional de Cultura Paiz. Voca People brought a musical show featuring popular songs by the only means of a cappella and beatbox, sans any other musical instrument. The Saturday night … Read more
Guatemala celebrates its Independence on September 15 and through the entire month student marching bands and parades are quite common. Students begin practicing for these parades as early as July. By the way, I found this video with Guatemala’s National Anthem as sound track and over view of the country in moving images. If you … Read more
Last week, as we watch the delegations parade at the Beijing 2008 Olympics Inauguration, I was thinking how wonderful it was to see so many different and unique national dresses from the many countries around the world. Some of the delegations opted for a no-frills-western-style tie-shirt-suit formal dress code, while others chose to show off … Read more
We continue the music journey at Jamtigua International Music Festival with Ranferí Aguilar and his Rain Maker show. Hacedor de Lluvia or Rain Maker could be classified as new age music created with pre-hispanic music instruments. I know this short explanation does not really explain Ranferí Aguilar’s music, so I decided to present two videos … Read more
Believe it or not, the dry green river bed is El Pensativo River. The other day while driving on Calle Chipilapa, which takes you to La Ermita de la Santa Cruz Ruins, I saw this huge bougainvillea tree on the other side of El Pensativo River, dry now but soon it will have running water. I never seen a bougainvillea tree so big; my girlfriend and I saw a midget bougainvillea tree—about 1 meter in height— in Tapachula, Mexico.
During the rainy season (May thru October), every hill around La Antigua Guatemala gets a new emerald green dress. In the picture above, we see the hill near La Ermita de La Santa Cruz ruins, right across from the Pensativo River, with a verdant dress made from coffee bushes and gravileas shadow trees in the … Read more
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 … Read more