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Restaurant & Food Overview

RWOrange put together a very comprehensive list of the restaurants and food I have covered in AntiguaDailyPhoto in Chowhound. Here’s the list …

Antigua Styled Water Fountains

This is another perspective to the Flowers and Fountains post from a week ago. In today’s photo I focused tightly and managed …

Doble Vía Sign

I like the ceramic “doble vía” signs and metal frames in La Antigua Guatemala. To be honest, I like all the ceramic …

Guatemalan Coffees Are Truly Green

Today, I continue learning about the Guatemalan coffees. In the past I have mention how I thought coffee plantations were beneficial for …

Immigration Inception

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken …

Corner Búcaro Fountain

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

Finca Washbasins and Water Tanks

Don’t ask me, but how did the venerable utilitarian pila (water tank) and lavadero (washbasin) became decorations elements or design accents? In …

Ubi’s Ceviche

Last week Jonathan Gold from LA Weekly and Evan Kleinman host of KCRW’s Good Food program did a review of La Cevicheria, …

Maximón Lives!

A few months ago, I posted as part of the Theme Day some Maximón effigies made from wood, now holly wood really …

Theme Day: Red

The making of sawdust carpets, alfombras de aserrín, with its vivid colors and eye-catching patterns are among the most prominent elements of …

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 …

Recycling Sewing Machines

I have talked about the recycling done in La Antigua Guatemala before with Haves and Have-Nots, Public Enemy Number 1, Guatemalan-style Salt …

Theme Day: Waiting

Since La Antigua is the wedding capital of Guatemala and very often used as wedding destination for couples the world over, it …

Law and Kindness

There are so many things that could be said about this photograph of two men, both in soldiers uniforms, even if one …

Fun for All Ages

So who’s fit to go on such a daredevil adventure of soaring like a bird? Antigua Canopy Tours assures that anyone from …

Have a Safe Flight

“The three most important factors for the canopy tour are security, a family-oriented experience and promoting nature,” Antigua Canopy Tours Manager Pascu …

Constructing a Canopy Course

“We could see the topography was just perfect,” Victor Gallo confidently asserted. Victor Gallo is the expert Antigua Canopy Tours hired to …

2 Sí

Back in April the Guatemalan government, following the lead taken by Colombia and Venezuela some years ago, issued the Ley de Transito-Motocicletas …

Theme Day: Big

127 cities around the world orchestrated a global effort to show the different manifestations of the concept of BIG. I could have …

Making Guatemalan Tortillas

Blame this photo on Eric, who just yesterday invoked the tortilla-making ladies. It is interesting how the aroma of freshly-made tortillas can …

Watching the World Go by…

If you are a fan of people watching you are hard-pressed to find a lovelier place than La Antigua Guatemala to enjoy …

Antigua Abstracted #3

One of Antigua’s many attractions is slowly discovering the piled and jumbled beauty of ruined buildings scattered throughout the old city. The romanticism and nostalgia of shattered architecture has always drawn traveler’s and tourists to places such as these- from the 19 Century grand tours taken by Europeans through Ancient Greece and Rome- to present day seekers of lost cities in the Guatemalan jungles.

Mayan Child of Maturity

This little girl, who looks to be no more than five-years-old, is calmly sitting by herself watching the daily activity and buzz on the cobbled street before her.

Colorful Guatemala

Colorful Guatemala, I tell you, colorful Guatemala! Si ni los mismos guatemaltecos logramos entender la complejidad cultural en la que vivimos… —Ale …

Having Lunch by The Garden

As more houses of La Antigua Guatemala are turned into business, the old architectonic spaces are converted for new uses. Here for …

Guatemalan Jade in Mayan Art

See everything is a matter of perspectives and that’s the whole truthiness and nothing but the truthiness (thanks Manolo for the new …

Visit The Time Tunnel

In my quest to bring to you ‘new’ vistas of the same ‘old’ places around La Antigua Guatemala, I present to you …

Casa Antigüeña: The Kitchen

The kitchen area in the casa antigüeña usually has a high ceiling provided by cupola which in most cases served as chimney, …

Theme Day: Lines

I have decided to participate on the monthly theme of the City Daily Photo sites again. You may not know it, but …

Doorway Beam Texture Wallpaper

Not only in walls can you find textures in La Antigua Guatemala; sometimes even wooden beams can provide moth-eaten textures. If you …

Contrast, Contrast, Contrast

Photography 101: capture contrast. Well, that’s another easy task around La Antigua Guatemala. Here you can find contrast in color, between the …

Fuel Home Delivery in La Antigua Guatemala

Other colonial measurements still in use in present-day Guatemala are: Una mano (one hand or five of anything), un manojo (a bunch), una libra (a pound; this one may hurt many of you, but for sure, the civilized world now uses the kilo), una picopada (a truckload), una fila de frances (a row of french rolls), una arroba (@ or 25 pounds) un quintal (100 pounds), una cuerda (a cord equals 1/6 of city block), una medida (a measurement of whatever fits inside a small can or basket), una penca de banano (that’s a banana cluster), et-cetera or basically that’s what I can remember right now. I am sure the Guatemalans visitors will share other colonial measurements being used in Guatemala. There was a recent article about colonial measurement in Prensa Libre’s Revista Domingo under the title of Costumbres que pesan {ñ}.

The Coffee Colors

The other day we heard many voices on the other side of the fence; voices of children and women just talking and laughing. We approached the windows on the second floor to see what was all the commotion; then we saw men, women and children harvesting the coffee. At this moment, you can see the turning point of coffee from green to golden yellow and finally cherry red.

SAT Office in La Antigua Guatemala

Well, you may be wondering what SAT office means. Behind this placid view of this government building hides one of the reason why Guatemala is so poor; a beggar really if we consider that Guatemala begs money for road repairing, road building, new modern national identification card, fertilizers, schools, libraries and the list goes on and on. The picture above is the local office of the Superintendencia de Administración Tributaria, SAT for short and the equivalent of the IRS.

Guatemalan Cuisine: Rellenitos

Rellenitos (little fillings) is the name given to a food made from plantain dough which molded into a semi-round shaped and filled (thus the name) with a black beans sauce or stuffed with manjar (custard). It is a sweet meal and normally eaten as junk food or as dessert. It is one of my favorite Guatemalan desserts and I am sure I am not the only one with a soft spot for this kind of meal. Check out this close-up shot of rellenitos to see the black bean sauce filling.

What’s killing La Antigua 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.

Guatemalan-style Salt and Pepper Shakers

eck, sometimes we even do some local recycling too. For instance, all those empty hard liquor bottles can have a fulfilling second life as salt and pepper shakers.

What I like about the people of Café No Sé is that they know when they are onto something; at once they apply the Café No Sé branding, and just in case, they make sure it is registered. These are my kind of hippies! 😉

Celebrations for the New President Álvaro Colom in La Antigua Guatemala

Even though the new Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom Caballeros, a 57-year-old industrial engineer and textile businessman, was sworn in for a 4-year term in Guatemala City in a ceremony at the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Theater, ceremonies and celebrations were held in the rest of the country too.

Alto, Watch Me

Have I told you about my sign fetish… I don’t know if a cure exist for this sing disorder, but for sure La Antigua Guatemala signs do not help; there are SO MANY of them.

Do you know the etymology of fetish? If not you can find in this site… go happy h

Ice-capped Volcanoes in La Antigua Guatemala

Sometimes you just have to ask yourself what kind of strange brew are the Canadians brewing way up north, heh. See, first they steal our bright minds; then they take our gold and buy out our postal service; they insert strange things into our antigüeño breakfast (bacon they call it); even our money is now Canadian (it reads Canadian Bank Note on the brand-new Quetzal bills); just to name a few things. In return they send salsa-dancing-craze Spanish students and the horrible and hostile weather. Come on, this is Guatemala, a tropical country in Central America, you know, the tiny land that impedes the Caribbean Island from moving over the Pacific Ocean. So what business does it have freezing-cold-ice-capping winds in La Antigua Guatemala. See, we don’t need no sticking ice-capped mountains and volcanoes in our gorgeous temperate-always-sun-shining-eternal-spring weather. Those volcanoes you see in the background are ice-capped (see larger image).

La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo’s Top 12 of 2007

New Year’s Eve Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala:
For starters there are many things that make New Year’s Eve similar and different than Christmas’ Eve. If Christmas’ Eve is celebrated with the family at home at your parents’ home; New Year’s Eve can be celebrated anywhere: a discotheque, a park, the beach or La Calle del Arco, a popular venue in La Antigua Guatemala

How to make the perfect Guatemalan Tortilla

Well, for starters you need ‘real’ nixtamalized maize dough (nothing of the maseca flour that Manolo uses), a ‘real’ comal (baked clay griddle) and you need to use ‘real’ leña (wood logs, quite possibly pine). After that, you need a good pair of hand to tortear (hit into shape) a real looking tortilla. You don’t need no sticking mold to shape your tortillas ma’am. 😉

Nacimiento Shrine Niche at Capilla de Belén

One important aspect of this particular Nacimiento is the fact that Santo Hermano Pedro de Betancourt managed to get himself in the picture of the Nativity shrine. For those who are not well verse in Catholic imagery, myself included, normally the Nativity scene shows Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus along with a few animals. No, Santo Hermano Pedro could not be present there since he was born about 1600 years later, give or take a few moons. Rather, the inclusion of his image, on the right, is to celebrate and to remember that is was Santo Hermano Pedro de Betancourt who introduced the Nacimiento and Posadas to the American Continent, to La Antigua Guatemala if you want to be precise, and from this old town, this celebration was taken to the rest of the continent.

The Ecological Way to Celebrate the Burning of the Devil in Guatemala

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!

Computer Terminals at the Compañí­a de Jesús Library

Computer stations are also available at the Compañí­a de Jesús Library in La Antigua Guatemala. Patsy mentioned that many people opt for the computer instead of grabbing the old-time-tested book. Well, the times are a-changing, you know and everyone needs help with a new system. If you don’t believe me, just take a look a the video clip below that show us how difficult it was for the book to get accepted as the new medium for holding texts.

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! 😉

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Spanish Schools in La Antigua Guatemala

In the picture above you see two foreigners taking Spanish classes in a Restaurant/School named Korea with omnipresent beer posters. Here’s the Spanish word/phrase of the day: Quiero más cerveza por favor (please, I’d like to have more beer). Life is though for the Spanish students in the Spanish school capital of Latin America.

Dog School in Antigua

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.

Giant Kite and Guatemalan idiosyncrasy

This picture is like a summary of the Guatemalan Idiosyncrasy. First we have the giant kite with all the Mayan motifs, which for a long time represented the pagan rituals as the dominant catholic church used to call them. Anything that represented non-christian religious rituals was denigrated and prosecuted under the pagan label

Kites On Sale

The Guatemalan word for kite is barrilete. Papalote is the most often heard word in Spanish for kite, but in Guatemala barrilete is what people use. The kites on sale at this convenience store or tienda are Q2/$.25. The kite that the little boy was holding yesterday was bought from this store.

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)

Arch-framed Women in Jocotenango

This is very simple image will allow us to play a creative game. Taking the two women as our characters we will write up one of many conceivable dialogues as the interaction between them. This would be similar to what we did in Opposite Ends of Life #2, which you should look at and read to get an idea. The apparent age difference could be used to set the pair as mother and daughter or sisters or simply co-workers of the newly opened Subway; it is up to you. I will submit the first plausible dialogue.

Transnational: Eat fresh

I think this Subway franchise will have to use its second slogan: The Way A Sandwich Should Be because the Eat fresh may not work in a place like Antigua Guatemala, where most places serve REAL fresh food. With all of these transnational fast-food restaurants in La Antigua Guatemala, we still have to make a run for the border or drive to Guatemala City if we’d like to think outside the bun while enjoying a bean and cheese burrito.

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.

Guatemala’s General Elections Will Be on September 9th

This coming Sunday Guatemala will be holding general elections for president, vice-president, congress curule seats, and city mayors throughout the country. It is sad to read the news feeds and news headlines regarding Guatemala. It seems like this tiny ‘paradisiac’ banana coffee republic has an innate quality to generate bad press. Like Tarzan, Guatemala jumps from bad stories to worse stories. It is a true jungle out here.

In the meantime, Guatemalans will cross their ballots to exercise the democracy Mayan ball game. But, before that, they must know where exactly they will cast their vote and for that, they have to go to one of the many citizens’ registration booths; like the one pictured above in the entrance to La Antigua Guatemala.

Load of Wood Fuel

Recently while reading the National Geographic en español, I learnt that not all instances of the use of wood as fuel are bad. According the article about barbecuing wood and charcoal do indeed pollute the atmosphere with smoke and ashes, but it is a recycled-type of energy when compared to other energy sources like gas or electricity.

Guatemalan Fair: The Charcoal-broiled Meat Booth

The charcoal-grilled meat stall has gotten so hip that you now find it not only in fairs, but around La Antigua Guatemala in parks, markets and sidewalks. Back in February 20th, 2007, I showed you an extremely popular stall of grilled meats in Tanque de la Unión park from a bird’s eye point of view. In the picture above, chicken and beef steak were being offered along broiled potatoes. Q10 ($1.25) for a portion of the meat of your choice, chirmol (read the side note), guacamol and potatoes; definitely, not too bad of a deal.