Digital life in Antigua Guatemala
Guatemala is a country of contrasts and extremes. Here is todo o nada (all or nothing); there’s no medium. Here you find …
Guatemala is a country of contrasts and extremes. Here is todo o nada (all or nothing); there’s no medium. Here you find …
The most obvious draw to dining at Café Sky is the view. Those camped out on the restaurant’s rooftop terrace can spot …
Rust is yet another desirable aspect of antique decoration elements for colonial houses. Sometimes the artisans and blacksmith artists speed up the …
First, Blame the trabalenguas, tongue twister, title on emromesco, who said that water will be the oil of the 21st century. Second, …
These recently renovated colonial-styled public water faucets can be found in and around many of the villages of La Antigua Guatemala. Like …
All Guatemalans, of course, just like the air. Water belongs to the Guatemalan people and it’s managed by the government; national and …
The view above of Volcán de Agua is from our studio’s window and balcony. I said before, in many listings for rent …
As more houses of La Antigua Guatemala are turned into business, the old architectonic spaces are converted for new uses. Here for …
Since I showed you, just the other day, how the façade of house from La Antigua Guatemala was being repaired and painted …
Well, it looks like 2009 will be the year of the new paint jobs on all the major churches around Antigua Guatemala …
I really like the Lent decorations you find over doorways and windows in La Antigua Guatemala. Lent or Cuaresma in Spanish is …
Details, details, details. Often you find little windows on the doorways of the houses of La Antigua Guatemala and most often they …
Every afternoon, the homeless man above walks slowly towards this corner house in Antigua Guatemala, one block away from the Parque Central, …
What better photo to wave goodbye to the Casa Antigüeña series than an image of the balconies against cloud-free deep blue sky, …
From the attic, it is only a matter of a few steps to reach the terrace or perhaps veranda would be more …
Finally, we reached the loft in the second floor… oops, I meant the attic. Remember the building codes in La Antigua Guatemala …
Now, I don’t know if the fireplace was an element of the original house from La Antigua Guatemala, but in recent years …
The area for el comedor (dining room) in the casa antigüeña has always flowers nearby, light, lots of it and usually at …
The kitchen area in the casa antigüeña usually has a high ceiling provided by cupola which in most cases served as chimney, …
Several times people have asked to show the inside of a house from La Antigua Guatemala and I had said that I …
Many times, when foreigners are looking at listings for houses or apartments for rent or sale in La Antigua Guatemala, they come …
Lucky me that I learned to have new aesthetic values for things antique and old. Lucky me that I find beautiful and …
The already narrow sidewalks of La Antigua Guatemala get even narrower with benches that literally grow out of the walls. Even though …
I’m amazed by the abundance and variety of fruit in Guatemala. My chapín friends lament the relatively poor selection here, and miss …
Anyhow, what’s got Little boxes to do with today’s entry. Well, once you listen to Little boxes or Las Casitas del Barrio Alto, you’d know it is impossible to get them out of your head. In a recent trip to México over the weekend we took the new road Carretera 14 to reach the highway that takes us to Southeast México. Carretera 14 is part of the road which will circumvent La Antigua Guatemala and some of the villages. In other words, Carretera 14 is the backbone for what will be the periférico around La Antigua Guatemala. Carretera 14 is also one the most beautiful stretches of road in Guatemala.
The cobblestone streets of La Antigua Guatemala were originally designed for horses and horse-carriages. So, it is no wonder that even light vehicles, like cars, create a lot of damage to the streets which, therefore, need constant repairing. Now you can imagine that huge and heavy trucks like the ones pictured above not only damage the streets, but the foundation of the houses and the city itself.
One by one all the houses in La Antigua Guatemala are becoming business like cafes, spanish schools, offices, travel agencies, folk-art stores, et-cetera. Above you see the corridor at Café No Sé, which was converted into a dining area by placing a few tables and chairs.
For those who would rather break a piñata than playing around with fire, I present to you the Lucky 7 Burning of the Devil Piñata for you to fill it with all your frustration and negative vibes and virtually burn it or break it with your mouse, trackball or tablet until your let it all out. Happy Burning of the Devil everyone!
The reason the photo above brought memories back from an old forbidden song in Latin America was the lyrics of Las casas de cartón (the carton houses) which had something about dog schools where the canine were given education so they don’t bite the newspapers… but I rather leave you with part of the lyrics and the song below it.
Central America and Guatemala especially have an abundance of water resources, many are groundwater. La Antigua Guatemala is located in a valley irrigated with over six months of a rainy season per year. La Antigua Guatemala is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes that collect even more water. Much of this collected rain ends up as groundwater.
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.
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. 😉
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.
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.
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).
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.
We continue our Guateflora series with the omnipresent coffee bush or tree, which has manage to leave the coffee plantation to become a hedge. The coffee bush is one the most often seen plants around La Antigua Guatemala, but not often I’ve seen it used as hedge. The above photograph was taken at the Compañía de Jesús building, with the ruins in the background.
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)
Here is a vertical shot of a biker doing a jump in the atrium of the Jocotenango church. Jocotenago is one of the communities very near La Antigua Guatemala. Jocotenango is so close to La Antigua that you might walk and cross over the municipal borders without realizing it. Jocotenango and Ciudad Vieja are the two municipios (counties) where most of the antigüeños moved after they sold their houses in La Antigua Guatemala. Some antigüeños sold their house under pressure from buyers and because the incredible prices buyers were willing to pay. Ciudad Vieja and Jocotenango is where most of the workers of La Antigua Guatemala businesses live. Jocotenango and Ciudad Vieja are ‘REAL’ Guatemalan communities, unlike La Antigua Guatemala. Soon I will post an entry with the following title: La Antigua Guatemala is not Guatemala (which I’ve been saving for a long while now). Stay tune!
JM Magaña, La Antigua Guatemala’s second conservator and the pen behind the architecture column in Recrearte Magazine, pointed out that until 1976 La Antigua Guatemala was painted all white too. At the time the cemetery was created in the 1800s, there were a couple waves of plagues and thus every thing was white-washed with live limestone to disinfect and maintain the town virus free. This coincided with the introduction of coffee in 1875 (more or less) and thus an abundance of wealth which provided the necessary fund to build all those mausoleums. There was a massive earthquake that hit Guatemala in 1976 and destroyed a great deal of buildings and houses in Guatemala. In fact, it is said that the 1976 earthquake changed forever the look and feel of Guatemala. La Antigua Guatemala was not saved and thus reconstruction began after the quake and with it, the color lime-stone paint came. This change in color did not reach the cemetery.
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.
Very Strong and Long Earthquake Hits Guatemala
Normally I have only shown the façade of many houses and building in La Antigua Guatemala for an obvious reason: I do …
The Antigua Guatemala is full plaques pointing to historic sites or events that happened here. The Antigüeños must luck the humor or …
One of my favorites small luxury hotels in Antigua Guatemala has to be Posada del Ángel. The good taste around this bed-and-breakfast …
This shot could be anywhere in the world, except for the fact of the blue in the sky can only be Guatemala; …
Let it be known that I am not breaking the rules with yet another photo with cats. Even though our little Tito is in the picture (now you have seen all three of our cats: Lolita, Camilo and Tito), really what I want to show you is the pumice-stone blocks which are used to build houses in Guatemala. Also, I want to show you the broken glass, chaye in Guatemalan Spanish, which is put on top walls as protection against burglaries.
Just yesterday I told you about the paint jobs that many houses and buildings undergo for the Holy Week Celebrations. Also, every …
Many houses and business buildings get a new paint job right before the Holy Week. The streets of La Antigua Guatemala get …
During the Lent period (Cuaresma in Spanish) many houses and businesses are decorated with purple or violet strips of textiles and bands …
Architecture arose from man’s necessity to shelter from the environment. First, he used the caves where he left registered scenes from his daily life, to then build, with the materials found in nature, his home. As humankind organized socially and the jobs became specialties, the first masons appeared and transformed the natural materials such stone and wood, and invented others like adobes and bricks from clay. (fragment from La mano de obra en la arquitectura from JM Magaña in Recrearte Magazine, page 8, available in Spanish as a PDF download)
Do I love yellow or what? To appreciate an old colonial town like La Antigua Guatemala you need a new set of …
If I walk around Antigua Guatemala and photograph all the street corners, I could do a series for a long while just …
What makes the life-style of Antigua Guatemala so appealing? Well, for starters we point out the great weather. Fountains, gardens with many …
The quality of the light has been fabulous. I feel the urge to re-shoot almost all the buildings, houses, churches and ruins …
If you love the bougainvillea flowers as much as Pamela does, and you don’t want to move to a secret island called …
This is the shot of a Guatemalan house at the very early stages of construction. I know this is not what you …
According to the entry on Guatemala on Wikipedia, 40% of the population of Guatemala is Amerindian. I believe the figure to be …
If you have paid any attention to doors that have appeared on this site, you might have asked yourself, are Guatemalans giants? …
Buying a house in Antigua is a proposition beyond the economic means of most Guatemalans, sometimes, even so for foreigners. On June …
Palo de Izote is a relative of the Yucca Tree. It is present in almost all gardens and fences here and everywhere …
Arch and fountain of Jaulón, originally uploaded by rudygiron. Okay, here is another fine example of a building restoration. Most buildings in …
The Mesón Panza Verde is one the best Bed-n-Breakfast in Antigua. It houses a very fine restaurant, an art gallery and the …
Once the Antigua became a popular tourist destination, many old houses were converted into hotels. Hotel Aurora is the opposite corner to …
Compañía de Jesus Fountain, originally uploaded by rudygiron. Here is another example of a fountain and a patio. This is the inside …