Month: August 2010

A Cure for Cobblestones

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Transitions creates 10 years of mobility in Antigua Transitions Foundation, an Antigua-based organization dedicated to supporting and empowering Guatemalans with disabilities, is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its wheelchair workshop. The workshop offers employment opportunities, currently to nine people with disabilities, and produces affordable and custom-tailored wheelchairs and mobility devices for those in need. History The workshop was rented from […]

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Category: Community Service, Projects Tags: , , ,

Sapphire

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Butterfly by Thor Janson

Sapphires sparkle all around you in Guatemala. Unlike some other gems that must be searched out, sapphires are overhead, underfoot, all around. You can easily bathe in deep, rich pools of sapphire. No, not the imported jewelry gems found in stores, but rather in nature throughout this “land of eternal spring.” The Pacific and Caribbean coasts flanking Mesoamerica offer expanses […]

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Category: Lifestyle, Sensuous Guatemala Tags: , ,

Dr. Lee Valenti 1928-2010

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Dr. Lee Valenti, who like Huckleberry Finn fled from American consumerism’s attempts to “sivilize” her, has died in Panajachel. She was 82. 
The former literature professor left her job at New York’s Hoffstra University in 1975, after long involvement in anti-war, civil rights, and environmental movements. With her divorce complete and her children grown, she arrived in San Miguel Allende, […]

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Category: Border Crossing Tags:

Festival de Música Antigua

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The Direccción General de las Artes del Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes and Hotel Casa Santo Domingo present the 2nd Festival de Música Antigua starting Saturday August 14 through Sunday 22. The festival features the musical groups Capilla de La Asunción, Coro Nacional, Ensamble Barroco de Guatemala, Dúo Galante from Mexico, Ganassi from Costa Rica and Santiago Players from the […]

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Category: DateBook Highlight Tags: , ,

Why do we have “mermaids” in La Antigua Guatemala?

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Mermaids appear in literature much after the fountain in Central Park was built by Diego de Porres in 1738. While today we might think of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid (1836), the fountain clearly pre-dates the fairytale. In using the Spanish word “sirenas,” we find sirens originally in Greek mythology that are often portrayed in later folklore as mermaid-like […]

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Category: Ask Elizabeth, Culture Tags: , ,

Farming Organically

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written by Dianne Carofino photos: George Carofino What makes a farm “organic,” one that grows organic produce? We put that question to Alex Kronick as we tour Caoba Farms, his five-acre organic farm on the outskirts of La Antigua Guatemala. Alex began his business six years ago, originally selling organic produce to one restaurant, and then quickly adding a second. […]

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Category: Editorial, Food & Drinks Tags: ,

In Search of Almolonga

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Exactly where was the center of old Santiago? Traditionally the honor has been assumed to belong to the urban center of Ciudad Vieja, the Old City. But was it? Tropical storm Agatha raged throughout Guatemala in May, déjà vu of 9/11/1541 for the hard-hit area east of Ciudad Vieja. Weeks later, the church of San Miguel Escobar still sheltered people […]

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Category: History, La Antigua Guatemala, Ruins Review, Travel Tags: , , ,

Oliver Thornwhistle on—Araucaria

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I feel fortunate that my vocation offers me low-altitude air travel to the four corners of Guatemala. When I’m in a helicopter or small plane, or even at a window on an upper floor of a Zone 10 high rise in Guatemala City, I invariably carry away two impressions: Quauhtlemallan, from the 16th century Nahualt for “land of trees,” is […]

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Category: in the garden, Lifestyle Tags: , , ,

Antigua Retro with John Heaton

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Traveler, collector, Central America correspondent for Travel+Leisure, founder-owner of Quinta Maconda, awarded Nat.Geo.Traveller 50 Tours of a Lifetime 2008, Heaton’s Guatemala projects have been acknowledged by the international press for over two decades. How many years living in Guatemala? Almost a quarter of a century. Why the move to La Antigua? Guatemala was terra incognita: wild, unfashionable, yet terribly alluring […]

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Category: Profiles Tags: ,