Antigua (Antilles), Guatemala

Hispanic Guatemala, the Antigua Fashion


Dances in the Cathedral
Folklore group dances in front of the facade of the San Francisco Cathedral, during a Paiz Culture Festival.
Colorful houses
Sequences of buildings from Antigua painted in warm colors.
La Merced Niche
Image of Our Lady of La Merced in a niche of the homonymous church.
Rivas Bus
Nativo walks along a cobbled street, in front of one of the bright buses in the region.
Jade
An illustrated panel on the wall of a jade factory and shop.
Santa Catarina Arch
Pedestrians approach the Arco de Santa Catarina, one of Antigua's most iconic structures that survived the 1743 earthquakes.
Spectators
A multi-ethnic audience watches another exhibition of the Festival Cultura Paiz.
distracted cyclist
Cyclist contemplates the ruin of other ancient churches in Antigua.
mestizo rest
Nativo waits against the wall of a washing plant in the city.
Pink font
Visitors next to the huge fountain that marks the center of the cloister of the Church of La Merced.
Washing machine
One of Antigua's communal washing facilities, overlooking the Fuego volcano.
Guatemala, Central America
Registration of an old VW Beetle as well as the architecture of the city in general.
Free afternoon
Foreign friends see photographs in a corner of Parque Central.
end of mass
Believers leave an Antigua church.
Street Theater
Cultural group performs a short satirical performance during the Paiz Culture Festival.
Fallen Angel
Religious detail of a fountain in the cloister of La Merced Church.
In 1743, several earthquakes razed one of the most charming pioneer colonial cities in the Americas. Antigua has regenerated but preserves the religiosity and drama of its epic-tragic past.

A few days after our arrival, we were saturated with the permanent sense of danger and threat that Guatemala City conveyed, with its barred shops and shotgun security guards with closed pipes always on the lookout for the door.

With no reason for ceremonies, we board a folk minibus and move to the much more welcoming neighbor La Antigua.

The early morning trip proved to be short, but the bus became more and more to the pine cone and the drip-love music that the driver insisted on playing in annihilating decibels made our heads in water.

Washer, Antigua, Guatemala

One of Antigua's communal washing facilities, overlooking the Fuego volcano.

The entrance Between Volcanoes in Antigua

When we entered Valle de Panchoy, the passionate cries of the various Central American singers still lingered. Only the supreme view of the summits of the three volcanoes that surround Antigua – Fuego, Água and Acatenango – has granted us a desired abstraction.

At some point, the descent into the valley becomes even steeper. It allows us to see the geometric structure of the village with its long lines of one-story houses, interrupted only by the churches and convents that bless it.

A few kilometers later, that tenuous migration ended in a terminal full of buses that served schools in the United States in the 60s and that, already in Guatemala, were transformed into metallic rainbows.

bus Rivas, Antigua, Guatemala

Nativo walks along a cobbled street, in front of one of the bright buses in the region.

There, at the door of an old Ford, as if he weren't sprawled in bold letters on the windshield, a driver's assistant loudly proclaimed the fate of his career: “Guate, Guate! Five minutes!".

The more he yelled, the more passengers arose. As a rule, entire Mayan indigenous families from the surrounding villages who descend from the mountain at sunrise, sell their fruits, vegetables, clothing and handicrafts in the markets of Antigua and take the afternoon to continue their business in different warehouses in the capital.

Chalchiguitel, Antigua, Guatemala

An illustrated panel on the wall of a jade factory and shop.

Guatemala: the Most Mayan of Nations in the Americas

No other country maintains a Mayan population as well preserved as Guatemala. At Lake Atitlán, in Chichicastenango, in other parts of the nation's most mountainous region, the natives supplant the mestizos and descendants of Hispanic settlers still only white.

We got into a taxi of a smiling mestizo. We head to the inn that we chose in a hurry for the first few hundred meters of the route to the center. Once installed, we recovered our mental sanity half-lost on the way from Guatemala City on a short sleep. Afterwards, we set out to explore the city.

La Antigua Guatemala – as its original name was abbreviated – resulted from one of the first settlements founded by Europeans in the Americas. We knew that it was, even today, one of its most beautiful cities, that this was due, in large part, to the Hispanic architecture, sometimes simple and sometimes grand, of the buildings.

Colored Walls, Antigua, Guatemala

Sequences of buildings from Antigua painted in warm colors.

Antigua's Lush Colonial Architecture

We just had to go through some streets to come across the emblematic Arch of Santa Catarina. And with long sequences of elegant facades, adorned by friezes, balconies and shutters that are always very well cared for, now painted in warm colors: crispy yellow, orange, red, lilac and purple, among others.

Arch Santa Catarina, Antigua, Guatemala

Pedestrians approach the Arco de Santa Catarina, one of Antigua's most iconic structures that survived the 1743 earthquakes.

From time to time, we come across open doors that allow us to peek into inner courtyards and gardens, almost always adorned with furniture as faithful as possible to the colonial style, surrounded by dense vines and lush bougainvillea.

After some time, it seemed to us that we had already developed the standard structure of the villas in Antigua: rooms built in squares or rectangles around fountains or wells that mark the functional centers of the residences.

Source La Merced, Antigua, Guatemala

Visitors next to the huge fountain that marks the center of the cloister of the Church of La Merced.

Most of the buildings in Antigua were initially built during the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries when it became the main colonial city in the vicinity and the Catholic Church sought to assert itself in this new domain.

At the time, almost all the wealth of the religious orders was used to display supremacy. Architecture has proven to be one of the most visible expressions of ecclesiastical power. It is not surprising, therefore, that, at one point, thirty-seven churches and a cathedral coexisted in Antigua, very close together.

Of all these, the Church of La Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, the Cathedral of Santiago and the Convent of San Francisco stand out.

La Merced, Antigua, Guatemala

Image of Our Lady of La Merced in a niche of the homonymous church.

Antigua was planned by the military engineer Juan Bautista Antonelli at the behest of Don Pedro Alvarado, the military disciple of the cruel Hernán Cortéz, the latter the conqueror appointed to subdue the peoples to the south of the already broken Aztec Empire.

Antonelli was on the alert for the difficulties of the undertaking and the life that would follow. As expected, his work and the future inhabitants went through major setbacks.

Assistance, Antigua, Guatemala

A multi-ethnic audience watches another exhibition of the Festival Cultura Paiz.

The Inevitable Curse of Natural Disasters

In 1527, the original city, built at the foot of the Água volcano, was destroyed by a flood caused by the transfer of its huge crater-lake.

Despite slight damage caused by frequent seismic activity, the one that followed, La Muy Noble and Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros de Goathemala lived 230 years of peace and prosperity. Until, in July 1773, it was destroyed by the earthquakes of Santa Marta.

cyclist ruin church, Antigua, Guatemala

Cyclist contemplates the ruin of other ancient churches in Antigua, Guatemala.

The governor ordered the capital of the colony to move to the area where, even today, Guate, the City of Guatemala.

Antigua was literally abandoned. Only the passage of time and the action of some stubborn residents forced his resuscitation. And the return of the authorities, these days, installed around the Plaza Mayor, the heart of Antigua to which we return again and again.

Tourists viewing photos, Antigua, Guatemala

Foreign friends see photographs in a corner of Parque Central.

More than Recovered, Today's World-Popular Antigua

This Hispanic square is bordered to the south by the Palacio de Los Capitanes, a double arcaded building under which small street workers operate: shoe shiners, ticket sellers and ice cream sellers, etc.

It also houses the Parque Central, a space with abundant shade from trees, where visiting “gringos” and expats – mostly Spanish students from numerous local schools – spend time reading or telling the latest adventures between the green panzas, so the townspeople were nicknamed for eating avocado pear in industrial quantities.

As it happens to us, every two minutes, small groups of Mayan sellers who try to foist bracelets more huipils, cuts, Girdles, other garments and portable crafts. At night, it's normal to play marimba bands there, but we were gifted with something even more rewarding.

on Stage, Antigua, Guatemala

Folklore group dances in front of the facade of the San Francisco Cathedral, during a Paiz Culture Festival.

It followed, then, one called Festival International Culture Paiz. For 15 days, the event enlivened Antigua with music, dance, theater and opera from various parts of the Americas.

On a stage installed in front of the majestic façade of the Cathedral of Santiago, folklore groups from Guatemala and other countries presented small theatrical pieces, as corrosive as they were comic, that satirized their people and customs.

During one of these exhibitions, we ventured out in front of the crowd. There, we laughed at a first evil done by an extra to a spectator, but we were soon surprised with two horrifying kisses from a human vulture during “zopilot” (a very popular term in Central America to name this scavenger).

on stage, Antigua, Guatemala

Cultural group performs a short satirical performance during the Paiz Culture Festival.

Without really understanding how, we found ourselves animating a kind of mini-magazine to the Honduran woman that portrayed the exaggerated speed of undertakers in those parts.

Amberris Caye, Belize

Belize's Playground

Madonna sang it as La Isla Bonita and reinforced the motto. Today, neither hurricanes nor political strife discourage VIP and wealthy vacationers from enjoying this tropical getaway.

south of Belize

The Strange Life in the Black Caribbean Sun

On the way to Guatemala, we see how the proscribed existence of the Garifuna people, descendants of African slaves and Arawak Indians, contrasts with that of several much more airy bathing areas.

Lake Cocibolca, Nicaragua

sea, sweet sea

Indigenous Nicaraguans treated the largest lake in Central America as Cocibolca. On the volcanic island of Ometepe, we realized why the term the Spaniards converted to Mar Dulce made perfect sense.

Amboseli National Park, Mount Kilimanjaro, Normatior Hill
Safari
Amboseli National Park, Kenya

A Gift from the Kilimanjaro

The first European to venture into these Masai haunts was stunned by what he found. And even today, large herds of elephants and other herbivores roam the pastures irrigated by the snow of Africa's biggest mountain.
Young people walk the main street in Chame, Nepal
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 1th - Pokhara a ChameNepal

Finally, on the way

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The Little-Big Senglea II
Architecture & Design
Senglea, Malta

An Overcrowded Malta

At the turn of the 8.000th century, Senglea housed 0.2 inhabitants in 2 km3.000, a European record, today, it has “only” XNUMX neighborhood Christians. It is the smallest, most overcrowded and genuine of the Maltese cities.
Adventure
Volcanoes

Mountains of Fire

More or less prominent ruptures in the earth's crust, volcanoes can prove to be as exuberant as they are capricious. Some of its eruptions are gentle, others prove annihilating.
Ceremonies and Festivities
Military

Defenders of Their Homelands

Even in times of peace, we detect military personnel everywhere. On duty, in cities, they fulfill routine missions that require rigor and patience.
Moscow, Kremlin, Red Square, Russia, Moscow River
Cities
Moscow, Russia

The Supreme Fortress of Russia

There were many kremlins built, over time, in the vastness of the country of the tsars. None stands out, as monumental as that of the capital Moscow, a historic center of despotism and arrogance that, from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin, for better or worse, dictated Russia's destiny.
Meal
Markets

A Market Economy

The law of supply and demand dictates their proliferation. Generic or specific, covered or open air, these spaces dedicated to buying, selling and exchanging are expressions of life and financial health.
Culture
Look-alikes, Actors and Extras

Make-believe stars

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Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Sport
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

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trip around the world, symbol of wisdom illustrated in a window at Inari airport, Finnish Lapland
Traveling
Around the World - Part 1

Traveling Brings Wisdom. Find out how to travel around the world.

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Fort São Filipe, Cidade Velha, Santiago Island, Cape Verde
Ethnic
Cidade Velha, Cape Verde

Cidade Velha: the Ancient of the Tropico-Colonial Cities

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ice tunnel, black gold route, Valdez, Alaska, USA
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

Sensations vs Impressions

Palace of Knossos, Crete, Greece
History
Iraklio, CreteGreece

From Minos to Minus

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Santa Maria, Mother Island of the Azores
Islands
Santa Maria, Azores

Santa Maria: the Azores Mother Island

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St. Trinity Church, Kazbegi, Georgia, Caucasus
Winter White
Kazbegi, Georgia

God in the Caucasus Heights

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On the Crime and Punishment trail, St. Petersburg, Russia, Vladimirskaya
Literature
Saint Petersburg, Russia

On the Trail of "Crime and Punishment"

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Early morning on the lake
Nature

Nantou, Taiwan

In the Heart of the Other China

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Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

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Joshua Tree National Park, California, United States,
Natural Parks
PN Joshua Tree, California, United States

The Arms stretched out to Heaven of the PN Joshua Tree

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Principe Island, São Tomé and Principe
UNESCO World Heritage
Príncipe, São Tomé and Principe

Journey to the Noble Retreat of Príncipe Island

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now from above ladder, sorcerer of new zealand, Christchurch, new zealand
Characters
Christchurch, New Zealand

New Zealand's Cursed Wizard

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Balo Beach Crete, Greece, Balos Island
Beaches
balos a Seitan Limani, Crete, Greece

The Bathing Olympus of Chania

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Herd in Manang, Annapurna Circuit, Nepal
Religion
Annapurna Circuit: 8th Manang, Nepal

Manang: the Last Acclimatization in Civilization

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End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
On Rails
Ushuaia, Argentina

Last Station: End of the World

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Nissan, Fashion, Tokyo, Japan
Society
Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo's fashion

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Casario, uptown, Fianarantsoa, ​​Madagascar
Daily life
Fianarantsoa, Madagascar

The Malagasy City of Good Education

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Jabula Beach, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa
Wildlife
Saint Lucia, South Africa

An Africa as Wild as Zulu

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The Sounds, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
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The Fjords of the Antipodes

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