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Why is Guatemala so Green?

Okay, I will tell you, but please don’t go telling everyone about it. In Guatemala we have a rainy season that lasts …

Palo de Izote fragment by Rudy Girón

Palo de Izote fragment

Palo de Izote is the Mesoamerican cousin of the yucca tree or Joshua tree and one of my favorite photographic subjects. Just …

Working People

As I captured this picture I was immediately transported to the Brazilian film “Domésticas” (Maids) by Fernando Meirelles, one of my favorite …

Theme Day: Animals

Of all God’s creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If …

Guatemalan Slang: Chilero

Today we open a new category that was long overdue: Guatemalan Slang. I mean we have seen some of the slang used …

Theme Day: Color Green

As every fist of the month, the Daily Photo community has a theme day and the color green is what was chosen …

Jardín Antigüeño: Tumbergia

These colorful and strange-looking flowers are the gift of a climber plant known locally as Tumbergias (tunbergia misurense is the scientific name). …

Breakfasts At Sabe Rico

Sabe Rico Restaurant, Chocolatería & Delicatessen is a great place to have delicious and nutritious breakfasts in La Antigua Guatemala. The range …

Poinsettias Everywhere

In Guatemala poinsettias are known as Flor de Pascua, Flor de Noche Buena or simply Pascuas. Poinsettias are native to Guatemala and …

Pueblo Chico, Chisme Grande

La Antigua Guatemala is a small town with big gossip! I remember clearly the first time I heard the saying pueblo chico, …

Corner Búcaro Fountain

According to Foursquare, I hold more mayorships than anyone in La Antigua Guatemala, including the current elected Mayor, Dr. Vivar. 😉 So, …

Art at Casa Santo Domingo

Hotel + Museo Casa Santo Domingo takes very seriously the museo, museum, part of its name. Not only there are several museums …

Guacamaya’s Bright Colours

Tomorrow, August 1, the theme day for the City Daily Photo community will be Bright colours. I figured I get a head …

Fountain Fragment

Besides signs, I also have a fascination for fountains. I am glad in La Antigua Guatemala there is an abundance of both. …

A Room With A View

Don’t we all would love to have a room with a view? Even though this is not my daily view, I can’t …

A Room With A Window

Arched windows are quite common in La Antigua Guatemala; I am sure I have shown you one arched window before, but I …

San Jerónimo Ruins Fountain

I wonder how many fountains there are in La Antigua Guatemala. Everywhere I go, even in fast food restaurants, there is at …

Colonial Corridor

Historically, colonial corridors have always been long and wide, and have always faced out onto a central patio, garden or fountain. Often …

Contrast: Red and Green

Guatemala has very creative names for their chilies. For instance, diente de perro, dog’s tooth, and diente de caballo, horse’s tooth, come …

Flowers Are Us

Believe it or not, in La Antigua Guatemala we have flowers in our gardens year around. We also are lucky to have …

Luna de Antigua

Anyway, in my never ending quest of bringing you the contrast of the ‘Old’ Guatemala versus the ‘New’ Guatemala, I share with you two new versions of Luna de Xelajú. The first rendition of Luna de Xelajú is by Malacates Trebol Shop. The second version of Luna de Xelajú is performed by the group Abracadabra. Next, you will find the lyrics for Luna de Xelajú in Spanish and English right below. Last but not least, you can watch and hear the Marimba of Bellas Artes performed Luna de Xelajú. Enjoy!

Making Pilas: Adding Color

These pilas go for a little over Q500/$60 because they use higher quality paint and more cement in the concrete mixture. Cheaper …

These are not repollitos

Repollitos are little cabbages and that’s what Jenn Klee used to call hortensias when she was a little kid. I can see …

Above and Beyond the Clouds

Can you have too many shots of La Antigua Guatemala’s volcanoes? I think not. This one was taken from the rooftop view …

Jardín Antigüeño: Geranios

Geranio is the Guatemalan name for Geranium, which is also known in Spanish as Pelargonio. Geranios or Pelargonios can be found with …

Jardín Antigüeño: Julias

Julias are flowers that blossom all year long. Julias scientific name is Salvias spendens and normally can be found dress in salmon, …

Jardín Antigüeño: Nazareno

Throughout the archives of AntiguaDailyPhoto.com you can find many of the plants and flowers available in and around the Antigua Guatemala gardens. …

Flowers-R-Us

Guatemala does not have a Spring season, nor Summer, Autumn, nor Winter, yet it is known as the Land of the Eternal …

The Webs We Weave

Too bad MO does not come by here anymore. He would definitely appreciate a photo like today’s; full of power lines. If …

Lent Decorations over Doorways

I really like the Lent decorations you find over doorways and windows in La Antigua Guatemala. Lent or Cuaresma in Spanish is …

Casa Antigüeña: The Bedroom

We are just about done with the Casa Antigüeña series. Here you can see the master bedroom which basically has two large …

Casa Antigüeña: The Corridor

Casas antigüeñas normally have at least one corridor or hallway, usually next to the garden and fountain. Omnipresent are the terra cotta …

What in the World is a Búcaro?

Many times, when foreigners are looking at listings for houses or apartments for rent or sale in La Antigua Guatemala, they come …

Jocotenango’s Cathedral

Those darn electrical wires! There they are again… getting in the way. ¡Son tan metiches! —MO I agree, but what can I …

What Makes Guatemalans Hot?

There you go again thinking I am going to give you the recipe for Guatemalanness… wrong. But, I can do share what …

Pruning the Gravileas Trees

There is nothing like rain water to make all the flora grow and in Guatemala we have a very copious rainy season …

The Library Tour: the reception desk

We will begin a mini tour of the library at the Compañí­a de Jesús building under the care of Cooperación Española NGO or Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional as it is called in Spanish.

But first the disclosure: I love libraries; even chicken bus libraries! 😉

Private Spanish Classes in La Antigua Guatemala

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the private Spanish teachers yesterday in the cornucopia of options available for taking Spanish classes in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Spanish Schools entry. Once again, take all these options with a grain of salt since many of the flyers put more emphasis in the private part of the sale of the service.

Office Window View

Here is a little over-sharing, as Miss Jill would say. This is one of the views from our office window into the garden. Here we can see José, our green-thumb gardener waiting for the heavy rain to pass. By the way, rain is one of the most difficult things to photograph. Here I set shutter’s timing at two seconds, holding the camera over the window crate as a tripod, to try to capture the heavy down pour, yet I was only able to show silky lines. I’ve tried to do the same before in the entry Comtemplating the heavy rain with a little better success. We are about one to two weeks from the end of the rainy season.

Window view of Mountains around La Antigua Guatemala

As beautiful, cosmopolitan, antique and modern as it is La Antigua Guatemala, many people choose to live in one of the surrounding villages that belong to the municipio (county) of La Antigua Guatemala. There are many reasons for this decision which range from the economics, ‘real guatemalan experience’, or simply to live in a more natural and greener environment.

Guateflora: Falsa Uva (False Grape)

The hoja de falsa uva (false grape) or Parthenocisus inserta as it is known scientifically is a trepadora (climbing) plant. In the trepadoras category the most often used are the hiedra (ivy), uña de gato (cat’s claw), falsa uva (false grape), collar de la reina (queen’s collar), and of course the ever-present bugambilea (bougainvillea). The trepadoras (climbing) category in the Guateflora book has 34 different plants, so I have homework to do. 😉

Guateflora: Falsa Maní­a (False Peanut)

Falsa maní­a or Maní­ forrajero (false peanut) as it is known in Guatemala the Arachis pintoi is a cubresuelos (ground-creeping) plant used often in the garden of La Antigua Guatemala. José, our gardener, told me that you can also use it a trepadora (climbing) plant if you guide it. I really like this evergreen plant which flowers all-year-round a tiny yellow flower. According to the Guateflora book, it can grow anywhere and handles well people walking over it.

Guateflora: Hiedras (Hedera/Ivies)

Hiedras (Ivies/Hederas helix & H. canariensis) are very popular as well as all kinds of trepadoras (climbing) or cubresuelos (ground-creeping) siempreverdes (evergreen) plants in La Antigua Guatemala. Hiedras and trepadoras are found in many antigüeño homes covering the gardens’ walls.

Guateflora: Cactus Pot

Believe it or not, the land around La Antigua Guatemala was a very ‘fertile’ arid zone before the introduction of the coffee bush as a crop in 1875. I know fertile and arid sound like two mutually exclusive words, but they were not in Guatemala before 18th century where the Nopal and Maguey cactuses were grown in plantations. I’ve even seen photographs of the nopal plantations around La Antigua Guatemala in the CIRMA Fototeca (The Photo Archives at The Center for Mesoamerican Research).

Guateflora: Colas de Quetzal

You know you are in a Guatemalan home the moment you see the Colas de Quetzal (nephorlepsis spp.) or Quetzal’s tails (ferns) hanging in the corridors. The Colas de Quetzal bracken has to be one of the favorite ornamental plants used in the Guatemalan home. Some of these ferns or brackens are native to Guatemala, but they are considered cosmopolitan because they can grow anywhere. Colas de Quetzal can grown in hanging baskets, pots or in the ground, but they need some shadow to maintain the evergreen colors. The above photo of Colas de Quetzal was taken at Vivero La Escalonia (5a av. sur final), a very popular nursery in La Antigua Guatemala. Vivero La Escalonia is a great place to have breakfast or lunch.

Guateflora: Close-up View of Gerberas

Gerberas (gerbera jamesonii) are a very popular flowers in the gardens of La Antigua Guatemala. Gerberas are found in yellow, white, red (like the picture above), orange, purple and pink. Gerberas grow in temperate-cold climate and give their beautiful flowers throughout the year. This particular shot was taken at Vivero La Escalonia in the south part of La Antigua. (source for technical information: Guate Flora)

Antigüeño Breakfast at Rainbow Cafe

The Guatemalan Writers Side Note:
For being such a tiny banana/coffee writers republic, Guatemala does produce and export quite a few good writers. I have mentioned some of them in this site like Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Pepe Milla, Ronald Flores. But, I have not done enough to talk about the great Guatemalan Literature written by its many excellent writers. Thanks to a comment by Coltrane_Lives about the possibility of his adopted Guatemalan daughter becoming a writer, I can point out a great Guatemalan novel written in English by Francisco Goldman, a respected journalist whose work appears often in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books and Harper’s (source: literaturaguatemalteca.org [ES]). “Francisco Goldman won accolades and international recognition with his extraordinary first novel, The Long Night of White Chickens, the winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts… ” (source: amazon.com). Another great contemporary novel is Ruido de fondo (background noise) by my dear friend Javier Payeras. Javier Payeras is one of the clearest and loudest voices of this generation and his poetry and prose has won the recognition in and outside Guatemala. Ruido de fondo has been reissued by the Guatemala’s Government Editorial Cultura to be required reading for High School students in Guatemala. For those who are fluent in Spanish, I leave the link to one of my favorites poems by Payeras: Soledadbrother.

Chicalote (Prickly Poppy) Cocoon in La Antigua Guatemala

Last year, on the entry The Land of the Eternal Spring, I talked about the “undocumented alien” in our garden, the Flor de Pascua (poinsettias) which were not planted or maintained, yet it gave us those wonderful red flowers from October through March. Since then, we moved to another house in San Pedro Las Huertas, one of the neighborhoods of La Antigua Guatemala, which is next to a coffee plantation with lots of trees and birds (partners in crime). Well, I am happy to report yet another “undocumented alien” in our new garden by the name of Chicalote (Prickly Poppy or Argemone Mexicana), a sort desert weed (that’s right I said desert, remember La Antigua is located in a tropical country). Two days ago I presented you the chicalote’s flower in the entry Flora and Fauna working together. One thing many visitors to La Antigua Guatemala notice right away is the incredible number of exotic flowers and plants, many of which grow in the wild.

Flora and Fauna Working Together

This is another shot taken from our garden which shows the harmonious relationship that flora and fauna can have. There are about four or five photos from our garden, a mini-series if we may call it that way, including one that shows some of edible weeds and/or herbs that our very popular in Guatemala. But, first we have to take a break, on September 1st, to be part of the Theme day of Daily Photo Community. The theme for tomorrow is street light or street signs and I have a great capture, with rain and all, from La Antigua Guatemala that show both of them.

Rain Drops over a Nopal Pad Wallpaper

You just have to be a bit more creative with the rain and the white and gray skies. For instance, a visit to our garden for some macro photos gave us this close-up shot of two rain drops on top a nopal penca (cactus pad) to be used as a possible wallpaper for your desktop computer. If you would like other Antigua Guatemala wallpapers for your computer, please, take a look at the wallpapers category. I hope you like options available there. Let me know either way.

Guatemalan Fair: The Church and its Saint

Almost all town fairs and festivities are around the town’s patron, in this case is San Pedro Las Huertas, which by the way, means Saint Peter of the vegetable gardens. Since Guatemala was a catholic country for the last 500 years or so and the Mesoamerican indigenous people absorbed and mixed the catholic rituals and traditions with their own religious beliefs and traditions, most Guatemalan towns have a Spanish catholic first name and often an indigenous last name (otherwise known as the original name). For example, Santo Domingo Xenacoj, which means the original name of the town was Xenacoj, and the town was re-christen with Santo Domingo. Now with the above information, we now know that a town’s fair happens once-a-year on the town’s catholic patron. For San Pedro Las Huertas the date is June 29th and for La Antigua Guatemala is July 25th because the city used to be called The Very Noble and Very Loyal City of Saint James of the Lords of Guatemala, as mentioned by Manolo a few days ago. And some of you thought La Antigua Guatemala was already a very long name; try explaining to your friends and relatives that you are planning a vacation to The Very Noble and Very Loyal City of Saint James of the Lords of Guatemala.

Theme Day: The Color Red

Once again, La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo is participating in the theme day of the Daily Photo community. This time the theme is about the color red. Here you can see the Compañí­a de Jusús building under care of the Cooperación Española which is huge red building; one full block to be specific. This building has had many uses through history, like the home of Bernal Dí­az del Castillo, home to the Jesuits of Central America in colonial times, thus its name, and more recently it houses a public library, culture center under the administration of Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional. You can see the big entrance of the building, the interior gardens and arches and one the side wall of the ruins. I decided to photograph this building because it’s the biggest red thing in La Antigua Guatemala, but I was lucky to have a red motorcycle and a red jeep enter the viewfinder at the moment I snapped the shot; how lucky, indeed.

Niche at Posada del Ángel

Okay, not much time today and you need something light every once in a while. Here is a little niche, nicho in Spanish, found at Posada del Ángel, which is small luxury hotel in La Antigua Guatemala. I have shown other photos of this gorgeous bed and breakfast.

Guatemalan Textiles at La Fuente

On the weekends the center garden around the fountain in La Fuente strip mall and restaurant is carpeted by Guatemalan textiles on …

A Million Shades of Green

Fact #1: Right now is winter in Guatemala as it is located in the Northern Hemisphere. You might not be believe this …

Four Streams

Fountains are very popular in La Antigua Guatemala. Fountains can be found everywhere: parks, restaurants, cafes, churches, schools, hotels, homes, government buildings, …

Pick your color #4

This is close-up view of the “undocumented alien” in my garden. I plan to have more strict rules for this migrant plants, …

Trimming the trees

The problem with old trees is that they are too tall; trimming the old branches becomes an ordeal. Here two employees of …