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Mayan family in a hurry

Oh what a wonderful combination of just the right ingredients is this charming and photogenic city we call now La Antigua Guatemala. …

Look Up, There’s Art Up There

Art should live free among us, in sitting rooms, cathedrals, palaces, town halls and cancer wards, in pubs and on gable ends. …

Ciudad Vieja’s New Square

Over two years ago, I shared with you the new look of the square right across from the temple of Ciudad Vieja. …

© Museo Casa del Tejido Antiguo by Rudy Giron

Museo Casa del Tejido Antiguo

If you would like to learn more about the Mayan weaving of Guatemala, make sure you visit Museo Casa del Tejido Antiguo …

Pilas de Santa Clara

I have always called this monument Tanque de la Unión because that’s what everybody calls it. However, I learned during my Antigua …

Colonial Restoration Scaffold

Here’s your Spanish word of the day: Andamio, which means scaffold. I don’t think I have shown andamios very often, although very …

Antigua Architecture Walks

I was fortunate to accompany Guatemalan Architect José María Magaña Juárez, who specializes in conservation of monuments and historic centers and was …

Antigua Guatemala Back Roads by Rudy Giron

Antigua Guatemala Back Roads

Antigua Guatemala is full of back roads and shortcuts that can take you to new scenery such as a bougainvillea-lined roadway, paths …

Antigua Hangouts: Parque Central by Rudy Giron

Antigua Guatemala Hangouts

There are many hangouts in Antigua Guatemala such cafes, restaurants, bars, pubs, parks, ruins, etc., but Parque Central or main plaza is …

The aesthetics of abandonment by Rudy Girón

The aesthetic of abandonment

If there ever it was a place where abandonment looks good that would be La Antigua Guatemala, which by the way is …

AntiguaDailyPhoto Turns 6-year Old

Today AntiguaDailyPhoto.com is celebrating its sixth anniversary. Also, the CityDailyPhoto community around the world is having the monthly theme day which is …

Fire Department Equipment Demo

Los Bomberos Voluntarios (Voluntary Fire Deparment) were giving demonstration of equipment outside of the Capuchinas Ruins this weekend. It looks like the …

Independencia de Guatemala 2011

Even Google celebrated Guatemala’s Independence 2011 with a Doodle. Also, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent their congratulatory remarks …

Independence Month Parades

Guatemala celebrates its Independence on September 15 and through the entire month student marching bands and parades are quite common. Students begin …

Nylon Country

Nylon becomes ubiquituos in Guatemala during the rainy season. Nylon is quite possibly the cheapest protection one can buy against the rain. …

Cathedral Spot Lights

I have been meaning to do a mini series about the churches and ruins which are beautifully lit by spot lights place …

Inside El Calvario Church

I have been accused by some close friends of never showing the inside of churches in AntiguaDailyPhoto. Okay, they might be partially …

Squeezing A Corner

Today’s photo and Colonial Church Ruins Within My Fingers were the result of fortunate accident. Let me explain. I was playing around …

Theme Day: Passageway

What’s inside this passageway? The largest fountain in Central America Ruins of a monastery Mayan arches used in colonial architecture Access to …

El Carmen Handicrafts Market

Visiting the El Carmen ruins folkart market is among the top things people do on the weekends and holidays in La Antigua …

Gran Courtyards of Espacioce!

The entire property of Espacioce! or the Centro de Cooperación de la Formación Española is impressive. Yet, many never venture beyond the …

Portal to An Ancient World

The whimsical, timeless allure of La Antigua’s colonial architecture, peacefully protected ruins and cobbled streets is a common theme of which I’ll …

Free Culture

In La Antigua Guatemala we are so lucky to have plenty of free culture. The Festival Internacional de Jazz en Antigua and …

Escaping to Another Era

Michele Woodey already so eloquently described the emotions La Antigua’s ruins evoke. In her Antigua Abstracted #3 post she wrote: “These are places …

Antigua Tours

If you walk around La Antigua Guatemala, quite regularly, you come across groups of tourists taking tours of the city to learn …

Guatemalan Fruit: Caimito

I tell you, those Costa Ricans have no shame. First they made the entire world believe that Central America was them. Then, …

Jacarandas at Central Park

I don’t know how it happened, but I had lost this vista of the Jacaranda trees in bloom at La Antigua Guatemala’s …

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 …

Theme Day: Circles/Spheres

“I miss playing tenta, el botecito, escondite, kick-ball, cincos, trompos and all the good old games kids play…” —MO It was only …

Horseback Riding Through Town

Whenever you come across people riding horses or donkeys over the cobblestone streets of La Antigua Guatemala you feel like you are …

Wear It With Pride (Part 1)

Last week, as we watch the delegations parade at the Beijing 2008 Olympics Inauguration, I was thinking how wonderful it was to …

Coffee Harvest Time in Guatemala

Yesterday’s photo was a close-up of the coffee bush in the lower left corner of today’s photo. If you click on the image above you can the coffee bushes (the small trees) being harvested under the shadows of the Gravilea trees in San Pedro Las Huertas, La Antigua Guatemala. Around La Antigua Guatemala you can find coffee bushes everywhere, including as part of the hedges of La Compañí­a de Jesús ruins.

You’re Not Dead Until You’re Forgotten

Guatemala’s real culture is syncretism and thus death plays an important role in traditions and culture. Guatemala is the real ‘melting pot’ and the final product is called mestizo. A mestizo is an individual that comes in many shades of brown and she is made up from a combination of AmerIndian, European, African, Asian and Arab. Syncretism and mestizism go together well and that is why there is no conflict with including some or many Mayan rituals, including death rituals, in a everyday Catholic or Christian service. Obviously, a single entry is not enough to describe such a complex human being, but we have to start somewhere and since Patsy Poor mentioned that recent studies showed that the U.S. will be brown (mestizo) in 50 years. 😉

Guatemalan Fair: The French Fries Stall

Papas fritas is the Guatemalan Spanish name for French fries. Here is the abbreviated history that gave us the Guatemalan french fries stall: first the Quechuas or Incas domesticated the potato (Solanum tuberosum) into a crop in southern Peru and northern Bolivia; the Spanish conquistadors took it to Europe where it was an instant hit and along with maize turned a famine-prone population into a healthy society; somewhere in one of the northern European states, quite possibly Germany, the potato lost its skin and got deep-fried; This Eurpean recipe crossed the Atlantic with the new immigrants that came to U.S. and since it was a foreign-looking recipe, they called it French fries (remember Coneheads); so the French fries came to Guatemala along one of the many incursions from the United Stateians (Americans they seem to call themselves 😉 ) as a side dish for the hamburger or the hot dog. Guatemalans thought that French fries were too good to be side dish and turned it into a meal by itself. That is how the papas fritas cart came to be.

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.

Is it fair? Really it’s a fair

For those who like to imagine what ruins were like and what people did around them I have todays photo of San Pedro Las Huertas Town fair with the church (not a ruin) in the background and all kind of food vendors around the town’s plaza. So this is what the ruins looked like when they were in used by the people of the past. If you would like to browse for other photos from San Pedro Las Huertas, just follow the white rabbit or if you only want to see a better shot of the church in the background just say we’re not in Kansas anymore.

For Whom the Bell Tolls?

Oops! I almost forgot about the photo above. These ruins belong to the church Our Lady of the Remedies, or Nuestra Señora de los Remedios in Spanish. It is located on the left bank of El Pensativo river, on the south part of town, right on the street that takes you to El Calvario Church; just a few hundred feet from it. The processional figures in storage, shown yesterday, are pile on the front part of the atrium. There is a black bird in the picture, can you find it?

Not All the Roads in Antigua are Cobble-stoned

Not all the roads in La Antigua Guatemala are cobble-stoned, some side roads that travel the distance between villages or coffee plantations could be simple dirt path like the one shown above. But even this dirt road can sometimes lead you to jewels like that one I found the other day tucked, as Suzanne pointed out, between Santa Ana village and San Cristobal El Bajo. Thanks to Suzanne, now I know that the name of the ruins is Santa Isabel. The view you see in the photograph above is looking towards Santa Ana village from the Santa Isabel Ruins.

Huge Bougainvillea Tree at El Pensativo River

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.

Antigua’s Cathedral at Sunset

The quality of the light has been fabulous. I feel the urge to re-shoot almost all the buildings, houses, churches and ruins …

Selling Folk-art on the Street

This outdoor folk-art market sets on the street outside the El Carmen Ruins on the weekends only, located about two blocks from …