Remembered for his bravery and dignity—fighting to protect his land and encouraging his people to do the same—he was defeated by conquistador Don Pedro de Alvarado but left a legacy that permeates Guatemalan life today.

Although debate remains over his historical reality, Tecún Umán is among one of the most important figures in the country’s history. Celebrated in literature, folktales and dances, and commemorated on the national currency, the Mayan king is also honored through prominent statues that guard both the entrance to Quetzaltenango and La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City.

There are various versions of the 1524 battle between Alvarado and Tecún Umán. However, according to legend, the gallant Maya-Quiché captain, adorned with quetzal feathers and a jewelled crown, led his native army into battle accompanied by Guatemala’s national bird, the quetzal.

The warriors, from worlds apart, met face to face: Umán on foot and Alvarado on horseback. However, since Tecún Umán had never seen a horse before, he assumed the conquistador and his steed were one being. He killed the horse, thinking that its rider would be slain too, but of course Alvarado survived. The Spaniard speared his opponent in the chest and killed the Mayan king. Legend says, that strewn with grief Tecún Umán’s faithful companion, the quetzal, landed on Umán’s chest—staining his feathers red with the blood. From that day on, all male quetzals have borne a scarlet breast symbolizing the fallen warrior.

Even though he was defeated, Guatemalans revere Tecún Umán because of his honorable determination. Tecún Umán was declared Guatemala’s official national hero on March 22, 1960.

Supervised exhibits include paper making, recycling, giant bubbles and even a micro city. (Emmy Powell)

El Museo de los Niños, Zone 13, Guatemala City

If the motto of most museums seems to be: “Look but don’t touch,” el Museo de los Niños in Guatemala City is the other extreme.

Located in Zone 13, the center opened in February 2000 and has since welcomed more than 1.5 million schoolchildren from all over Guatemala. Through an assortment of dynamic games and interactive puzzles, the museum teaches kids a variety of academic subjects while informing them about their country’s culture and how to be a good citizen.

Want to teach a 4-year-old about the fragility of the Earth’s ozone layer or the importance of collecting rain water? El Museo de los Niños has all the answers and takes you on a journey through space, the human body and a coffee plantation to find them.

From a life-size version of the popular board game Operation, to a giant aerial photo of the city where children race to see who can locate famous monuments first, everything is educational and designed to make learning fun. Even the outside climbing wall depicts several of the country’s volcanoes so that as children climb the rope they “ascend” Pacaya, Fuego and Acatenango and discover which has the highest peak.

The enthusiastic guides believe that if you can teach core values and environmental responsibilities at an early age, you will secure a better future for Guatemala. Eco-friendly messages are reinforced throughout, with paper-making activities and material-separating stations to show that recycling can be fun.

Among recent visitors were more than 100 children from Niños de Guatemala, an NGO which provides access to education for the poorest children of Ciudad Vieja.

“I was completely blown away,” said Emmy Powell, volunteer coordinator with NDG who accompanied the children. “The building itself is bright and welcoming. The staffers are knowledgeable, enthusiastic and well-organized. The topics covered by the museum’s activities are interesting and diverse. Our kids had an absolute blast while learning!”

As well as containing more than 45 exhibits for children aged 8 months to 12 years, el Museo de los Niños also boasts a ball pit, a mini-football pitch and a theater, which is available to rent for birthday parties and family reunions.

They keep technology to a minimum—demonstrating that children don’t just learn through computers but also by using their imagination, exploring and interacting with objects around them.

“Chiquitenango,” the museum’s very own micro city, gives children the opportunity to “drive” around its streets, navigate traffic lights and greet pretend firefighters, gas station workers and pedestrians playing in the park. It really opens their eyes to the world around them and teaches them to respect others and abide by the highway code.

The museum collaborates with businesses and institutions to raise money so that orphans and children from public schools and NGOs can visit free of charge rather than pay the usual price of Q35 per person.

Open from 8:30 a.m.-noon and 1-4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and 2:30-6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, el Museo de los Niños is a giant game for children of any age that proves learning is fun.

Since the museum is near the zoo, why not make a day of it and visit both attractions? Just don’t forget to bring your inner child—as well as your real ones, too.

Twenty years of tackling poverty through photography

Surrounded by 40 acres of toxic garbage, in the middle of Central America’s largest and most dangerous landfill, isn’t exactly where most people gain inspiration. However, for ex-Reuters photojournalist Nancy McGirr, the smell of burning plastic, combined with the sight of cardboard houses and gardens of sewage, is where Fotokids first began.

Originally called “Out of the Dump,” this unique project was founded in 1991 with the aim of using photography to break the cycle of poverty, and this month the NGO celebrates its 20^th anniversary.

“I first went to the dump to photograph a story for an Australian magazine,” says McGirr. “There were 3,500 people living, working and scavenging for food–and 1,500 of them were kids who followed me wanting to see through my camera lens. The thought occurred to me: If they had the camera, what would they see through that lens?”

Armed with three cheap, plastic cameras the first group of six students aged 5-12 began their enrollment process: taking photos of everything and censoring nothing. The students, who all lived in Guatemala City’s sprawling garbage dump, took pictures of whatever fell before their lens: drugs, violence, death.

McGirr soon realized their photographs could be used as a teaching tool to show them they didn’t have to be part of a gang to be in a group, and that cameras are a more effective weapon against poverty than guns.

By taking snapshots of their everyday lives, children from some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city began to express themselves. Children who, at the age of 7 had been exposed to more pain and suffering than anyone should witness in a lifetime, could start to dream.

A Dump with Travel Benefits

“I originally thought the project would last six months to a year, but it just took off,” recalls McGirr. “We started in July and by September had already appeared in The Washington Post.”

A couple of months later, Konika Japan sent supplies and asked them to exhibit in Tokyo, they were the cover story of various magazines and even had a film crew from London come out to record two TV episodes for a children’s art show.

From the initial six students who entered the after-school program, hundreds have passed through it. Each receiving a camera, food, photography classes and educational scholarships–while having their work displayed in exotic locations around the world.

From meeting the Dalai Lama, to working on the set of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and exhibiting alongside Brazilian photographer Sebastian Salgado, Fotokids has created a future for many underprivileged children: a tool with which they can escape their lives of perpetual poverty, drugs and gang violence.

A Culture of Giving Back

“I never imagined going on a plane,” says Evelyn Mansilla, who started with Fotokids 18 years ago. “But at 15 I went to Spain, then to Australia and San Francisco.”

Mansilla, who grew up near the dump, now works as the administrative director of the project and believes the experience changed her life. “Without it I’d never have finished school, gone to university or been able to give back to my community.”

Giving back is an integral part of Fotokids’ philosophy. Many of the students become the teachers and work in the school in Zone 13 or in outreach programs across the city or farther afield in Santiago Atitlan and Honduras. The staff are all Fotokids graduates who feel compelled to give others the opportunities they have had.

Often they go back to their own communities, mentoring children and showing them what can be achieved if they work hard at school and stay in the program.

Challenges

“We all want to branch out and take the project to more places in the city. There are so many children of all ages here that need our help,” says Mansilla. “Around 7 years old is a good time to start–that’s when gangs start recruiting.”

As well as dealing with the threat of gangs, one of the main challenges Fotokids faces is persuading parents to let their children stay in the program. Parents often fail to see the long-term benefits of keeping children in school beyond sixth grade and would rather they start contributing to the family income.

To tackle this problem teachers work directly with communities, going into some of the most dangerous barrios in Guatemala City and giving classes to children while building relationships with their families.

“Of course, they don’t all go on to become photographers,” states McGirr. “Photography just gives them an identity and a platform”–for other opportunities they would never otherwise have had.

Entrance to Fotokids’ month-long “20 Years Capturing Dreams” exhibition is free and opens at 5:30pm, Thursday, August 4 at Artecentro Graciela Andrade de Paiz (9a Calle 8-54 zone 1, Guatemala City).

More information: www.fotokids.org

One volunteer’s overwhelming experience serving in the city dump

written by Hannah Wallace Bowman

Every day at 7:15 a.m., a bleary-eyed group of Westerners gathers on the pavement outside La Antigua Guatemala’s San Francisco Church. Clutching banana bread and paper cups of steaming coffee, they soak up the early morning sun. Preparing to make their way into one of the infamous red zones of Guatemala City, they are a diverse bunch, comprising people from all over the world; their ages and motivations vary, and each of them has a unique reason as to how they came to be waiting for this particular bus.

Yet, they all have a shared destination: These are the volunteers of Camino Seguro (Safe Passage), a non-profit organization that provides hope, education and opportunity to the basurero community of the capital.

Basurero is the Spanish word for dump, of which Guatemala boasts one of the biggest in Central America. Taking up 40 acres of a huge ravine that runs through the city, the dump receives over 500 tons of domestic, chemical and medical waste daily. The people in the surrounding neighborhoods make their living by harvesting materials from the landfill for recycling—gathering cans, paper and metals to sell for a few quetzals—and it is this community that Safe Passage was created to serve.

Since it was conceived in 1999, when a young woman named Hanley Denning opened the doors of a small rented apartment in the heavily populated margins of the tip, offering the children who were foraging in the rubbish a safe space to come and do their homework, the organization has continued to grow. Today it works with approximately 300 families, providing refuge and educational reinforcement to over 550 at-risk women and children.

Whether you are a classroom assistant, a teacher, a tutor in the adult literacy program, a social worker or a kitchen porter, there really isn’t such thing as a “typical day” at the project. In my last eight months as an English teacher, every day has offered something new. I have been given the opportunity to work with a demographic I wouldn’t ordinarily have access to and have experienced almost every spectrum of emotion possible, from the intensely negative to the euphoric. It has been this diversity and intensity that has made the experience rewarding in such a way that only a true challenge can be.

The kids and mothers typically come from backgrounds that can make it a struggle to push past their streetwise exterior. After arriving on my first day expecting to be greeted by smiles and open arms, I quickly learned that building relationships with individuals who exist in the harsh reality of an inner-city slum can be tough and unpredictable. Trust is an issue in these barrios policed by gangs, as is violence and substance abuse. There is an educated suspicion and distance toward new people, unsurprising in a context where life is anything but easy and people learn quickly the art of self-preservation to survive.

Garbage trucks line up to offload 500 tons of domestic, chemical and medical waste daily photo by Joseph del Conzo

The volunteers, whether they are short term (minimum of five weeks) or long haul, are expected to treat their commitment to the organization as they would a job. This means 10 hours a day, five days a week, and a clearly defined set of responsibilities with no sleeping in for a hangover. It’s a tough schedule but it makes for a collection of dedicated and close individuals, who take what they do seriously. Spending so much time together in such an emotive environment forges strong and long-lasting connections between the folks of Safe Passage, while to an outsider, “The Camino Crew” may seem a strange phenomenon, displaying pack-like characteristics and tending to travel together as a unified mass, hosting parties where they take turns picking lice out each other’s hair.

I am now coming to the end of my time with the project. Although I fear that this was probably lost in translation, I have been trying to explain to the kids how they have affected me so much more profoundly than I could have possibly have hoped to affect them. If I have managed to give back even one percent of what I have taken away from this overwhelming experience, I can hold me head up high. It is with a heavy heart that I remove my signature green T-shirt for the last time and say farewell to a place that has changed me forever.

To volunteer, sponsor a child or for more information, visit www.safepassage.org

Miguel Ángel Asturias photo by Jacobo Blijdenstein

Depicted in formal clothing with his head held high, the 10-foot-tall statue of Asturias appears to be strolling down Avenida La Reforma with papers billowing out from the books he is holding. Originally, the sheets cascaded from his hands all the way down to the ground, but shortly after the sculpture was completed, vandals pilfered the bronze pieces.

Historians have since remarked that the defacing of the controversial poet’s statue only serves to increase its symbolism throughout the country. Carlos René García Escobar commented that: “Miguel without pages is a paradox;” just as people tried to silence his work in life, they are now trying to do the same in death.

Born in Guatemala City in 1899, Asturias studied law at the University of San Carlos before moving to Paris in the 1920s. While in Europe, he wrote one of his most famous novels, El Señor Presidente, which remained unpublished until 1946 due to its political content. After decades of living in exile as a result of his radical views, Asturias received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1967.

It was only after his death in Madrid seven years later that Guatemala acknowledged its award-winning poet and novelist’s contribution to writing. However, despite being credited as modernizing Latin American literature, Miguel Ángel Asturias remains relatively unknown among the majority of schoolchildren across the country today.

More than a quarter of a century ago, a pal of mine lucked into acquiring a Mercedes-Benz classic, a used-but-babied 300SL “Gullwing.” To say that this is one of the all-time, absolute greatest cars ever made is, in my opinion, an understatement.

When it was introduced around 1952-3, it was as an all-out race car driven by the likes of Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio “El Chueco,” a five-time world champion, and racing great Stirling Moss. This car beat the daylights out of everything from a Ferrari and Maserati to an Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo—the Lotus, Cooper and Porsche weren’t even players in those days.

A couple of years later Mercedes put out a half-tamed version; the Gullwing nickname came from the way the doors opened, up toward the roof. The bodywork looked so beautifully modern that, even very few cars, if any, can better esthetically express fast and furious power.

A few days after my friend purchased the Gullwing, he took me for a ride up the Carretera a El Salvador, which at that time was a two-lane road. It was around five in the afternoon in the rainy season, but not raining, and the air was crystal clear as can be, and as golden as the sun, falling toward the hills to the west of the Valle de la Asunción, could make it. “Technicolor” doesn’t even begin to describe the beauty of the nuances of such an afternoon.

We passed every car in sight going up the hills—not that in those years there were a lot of cars; on a crowded afternoon, from valley’s bottom to top of the hills, you’d pass perhaps a dozen cars at most. Additionally, around that epoch was the very first time when one could actually choose the music one wanted to hear in a car, instead of having to hear what was coming through the radio.

There were two music-reproduction formats: 8-track cartridges (older) and cassettes (newer); in the couple of days since he’d gotten the car, my pal had put in a cassette tape-deck and, as we raced up the Carretera a El Salvador hills, we were listening to the Beatles’ Back in the U.S.S.R., full blast. Aside from the idiotic lyrics, I still think that its beat and rhythm is the best rock music to pound the road in a very fast car. Another piece, Runnin’ Down a Dream, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, runs a close second.

A bit after El Mirador—the lookout to the valley—a car appeared right behind us on a curve. It was a race-prepared BMW 2002 Alpina—2002 was the model, not the year. The BMW was going to the racetrack up on the highland for a late tryout, where there was to be a formal race the next day, a Sunday.

Instantly, the race was on, the music became much more syncopated, with the banshee wail of the engines perfectly complementing the rock music, and the colors of the afternoon becoming way more intense.

The Alpina was about 15 years newer than the Gullwing, but that Merc was THE Merc of all time. My friend was a good driver, but much more prudent than the racecar driver in the Beemer. The other guy passed a truck on the wrong side, squeaking through an impossibly narrow slot, and gained the advantage on us. But he couldn’t get away; we stayed on his bumper, at very high speeds, all the way to the entry to Los Volcanes raceway. We went on, while the Beemer went in. The whole time the Beatles were pounding away and Back in the U.S.S.R. kept coming up.

Adrenaline rush? Hedonism? Youth? Magic on an afternoon? I think all four. I’m grateful we survived the experience. And so I’ll close by recalling a quote that seems apropos, “you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

Queso fresco, queso de capas, queso de Jalapa, queso de Petén, queso de Taxisco: it’s all here, deep down in the lower levels of the Mercado Central in Zone One of Guatemala City.

Years ago, the market took place in the grand plaza two blocks to the west but as time went on and it grew in size, the city decided to create a permanent facility. Now located behind the Palace of the Archbishop, a block southeast of the National Palace, the market is the sprawling three-story indoor covered market for crafts, foods and assorted oddities that defy description.

There’s a parking lot on the west side but the entrance is tricky, i.e, narrow … down the steps takes you to the level with the fountain and then down those stairs … it’s arts, crafts, fabrics, textiles and key-chains.

Below that, the food section … and a riot of color and textures: bags of spices, mounds of fresh fruit, vegetables, freshly cut to order beef and chicken and the cheese section. There are a few food stands, with stew of some sort slowly simmering.

It can get a bit crowded and dark in some of the corners and the children of the vendors like to play ‘hide and seek’… sort of like looking for the flower section, if you can find it.

Monument to Christopher Columbus

Among the most interesting and charismatic monuments in the city is the statue of Christopher Columbus. Its history is as interesting as the character that it represents. The turn of the 19th century, neo-classical statue of the celebrated and adventurous Genovese explorer was created to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his arrival in the Americas.

The bronze statue was commissioned to the Spanish sculptor Tomás Mur. The June 1896 festive inauguration ceremony was preceded by the then-first lady, Alegría de Reyna Barrios, wife of the famous reformist President Justo Rufino Barrios and was witnessed by the whole of Guatemalan society.

The Columbus statue, right hand on his chest and left hand pointing to the world at his feet, stands on a sphere. On the equator, the phrase: “Plus Ultra October 12th 1492” commemorates the celebrated (and for many, infamous) date. Holding the world are three vigorous figures representing science, constancy and valor, all which fueled the fearless Columbus to complete his historic journey.

In late 1917, the statue almost plummeted as it was battered by an earthquake, and his bronzed head took a nose dive onto the ground. The good citizens of the city came to its rescue, bringing mattresses and boards to keep the statue from completely falling down. The keen observer may notice the scar where the head was re-attached.

True to Columbus’ audacious character, the statue has traveled as much as Columbus himself. Originally placed on the western side of the city’s Central Plaza, it remained there until 1943, when it was moved to the Jocotenango Park, (Hipódromo del Norte zone 2). In 1965, it traveled once again to where it now rests in his own special plaza in Avenida las Américas. Today, with more than 100 years of residence in the nation’s capital, Columbus still stands overlooking the Américas plazas.

Set at the northern end of the enormous Plaza Mayor, Guatemala’s National Palace is the origin of all the roads in the Republic with a spot known as Kilómetro Cero. Two and half miles north of the gleaming chrome-and-glass towers that line the Avenida La Reforma, the edifice is flanked by the Biblioteca Nacional to the west, the colonnaded arches of the Portal de Comercio to the south and the cathedral backed by the Archbishop’s Palace to the east. Where are we? Zona Uno, the city and country’s historical center, built in waves of different construction styles, cobbled together with remnants of some of La Antigua Guatemala’s rubble and finally concluded with the completion of the National Palace in 1943.

Guatemala City, founded in 1775 following the series of devastating earthquakes that brought La Antigua to her knees, was originally modeled on the Spanish urban colonial design of large plazas and wide streets running geographically north-south and east-west, but with significant differences. The Plaza Mayor is heroic in scale, perhaps a quarter of a mile wide and 800 feet across, including a large fountain with a reflecting pond and shaded by numerous trees.

The Plaza Mayor is heroic in scale including a large fountain with a reflecting pond and shaded by numerous trees.

The stylistic differences between each of the building periods are striking. The Cathedral and Archbishop’s Palace retain a colonial style, but the Portal del Comercio boasts a neo-classical façade. The newer almost post-modern National Library seems incongruous, being half-hidden by the bandshell and the flowering bougainvilleas shading benches which are used by nearby idlers and peddlers. The city grew outward from the plaza, and the architectural styles reflect the differences of the 230 years that have passed. Originally, the “Mudejar” style of building — with the closed walls to the street side, an interior patio with fountains and colonnaded rooms along the inside square, as noted in La Antigua — created a uniformity of private residences. As time and tastes changed, combined with the collapse of various governments and the occasional earthquake, Zona Uno became more of a European-style city center.

When the ecclesiastical properties were gradually expropriated in the 1800s, they were converted to public buildings, further changing the architectural mix. Today, the National Palace sits as a well-tended (and guarded) grandfather might, keeping an eye on the older domed cathedral on one hand, the Greek Revival-style commercial block off in the distance and the out of sight/out of mind National Library hidden as well as possible to the right.

In the streets branching out from the palace are hidden smaller plazas, the occasional Art Deco-style building and the faded remnants of a once-prosperous past and more popular urban center. As the urbanization spread outward, new suburbs were created and with the increase of wealth and population, demand and desire dictated a different life-style. Zone One remained the government center but newer buildings in different zones shared the power. The commercial center continued to be a warren of shoe and jewelry stores. The Mercado Central was moved to the east, on the sunny side of the Archbishop’s Palace. There is now an underground parking lot beneath the plaza, and the pigeons arrive early for the snacks. Candy sellers and other vendors, a throng of women with handicrafts, and busloads of children arrive early in the day. The fountain is turned on at 9 a.m. as the squad of special army forces in their camouflage uniforms come trooping across the square. They march to the 100-foot-tall flag pole and disassemble in careful steps, flanked by men with red berets carrying M-16s.

The flag is slowly unfolded and the eight men detailed to hold the 20-by-50 foot blue and white national symbol are very careful not to let any part of it touch the ground. Gradually the eyelets of the flag are connected to the snaps on the halyard. Two men are detailed to slowly pull the nylon line, and the flag is gradually urged upward. When at last the fabric is completely fastened and rises above the plaza’s dusty stone footings, the squad re-forms into a square of green and beige patterned soldiers. The enormous flag, now safely raised to the top of the aluminum pole, flutters gently in the breeze.

The troops march back to the palace and continue around the corner, rifles at the ready. The pigeons eat corn. The barkers and hustlers in the shaded corners resume their spiels. Fruit peddlers push their heavily laden carts about, filled with mangos, pineapples and papayas. To the east, the morning vendors of the Mercado Central arrive with their wares for the day, pottery, paintings and potables. This is Zone One. The clatter of steel-shuttered stores in the Portal del Comercio can be heard, as one by one, the doors go up and the lights go on. The gothic hands of the clock high on the tower of the cathedral slowly twitch, counting time as they have for the last 200 years or so. The sense of history is everywhere, and the ghosts of the past are probably not happy with the buses belching black clouds of diesel smoke as they pass through the square. Tempus fugits.

Metropolitan Cathedral in the center of Guatemala City (photo: Jordan Banks)

Ah yes, there are lots of vehicles indeed, some with a unique rhythm of cylinders firing in ragtime, some chugging smoothly, with an occasional backfire or squeal of speed. Ignore those sounds. There are so many better ones: shuffling feet in sandals, marching feet in boots, staccato sounds from stiletto-heeled ladies, quick pattering from children running after the pigeons. Listen for all the variations in footsteps, businessmen with briefcases stepping briskly, pushcart vendors straining to move their full carts, soft steps from files of nuns shuffling into the cathedral.

The cathedral’s bells break through the city noises, ringing the hours, calling the masses: early morning, midday, evening prayers. Other parish churches must wait until the cathedral bells sound first, then other bells can join in around town in waves radiating from this central square. Some mid-mornings, the cathedral bells toll for a death; some mid-afternoons, they ring joyfully for marriages. The big deep bells came from Spain to the old capital four centuries ago were brought to the New Guatemala after La Antigua’s earthquake destruction. Smaller bells were often cast in Guatemala from the broken pieces of Spanish bells that broke in route or in tumbling from steeples. Hear the silver tones in those bells—of course, lots of silver was included in the alloy, for lots came out of these hills.
Under the arcades, hear the sounds of sizzling foods on the grills, the music from kids’ boomboxes, the soft singing from some of the merchants humming under their breath, the louder cries of voices calling out special prices on tables full of goods. A pleasant murmur comes from women at shop doorways, pase adelante, a welcome to come in. Harsher calls come from the men with cases of dubiously labeled watches or counterfeit cell phones.   Ah yes, those cell phones, ubiquitous on streets around the world, though somehow the Guatemalan voices are usually more musical and tolerable than chatter on most of the world’s streets. Maybe there’s music in the Guatemalan blood that soothes many voices.

Around the corner, the noise of the city is stronger; in the broad expanse of the great square, sounds seem more muted. If you’re fortunate, a marimba band is playing, the happiest music in the world.  Hear all the sensuous sounds surrounding you in this center of the Republic.

Guatemala City in 1875, view from Cerrito del Carmen (Eadweard Muybridge, Fototeca Guatemala Cirma)

A late bloomer of Latin America

written by David Jickling

Among Latin American capitals, Guatemala City is a later comer. Most of the major cities of Spanish America were founded in the 16th century, within a hundred years after the arrival of the Spanish. In contrast, Guatemala City was established at the end of the 18th century after the destruction of what is now called La Antigua Guatemala.

Nueva Guatemala a la Asunción grew slowly during its first century. Hard times provided few funds for public and private building. It did not reach a level of amenities enjoyed by the earlier citizens of La Antigua until after 1850. Only with the income from coffee exports after 1880 did Guatemala have the resource base to build a modern city.

Old timers alive today remember when the city virtually stopped at 18th street. To venture out to Tivoli or Santa Clara (today’s zone 9 and zone 10) was to take an excursion into the countryside. It took nearly 20 years for the city to recover from the devastating earthquakes of 1917-18.

After the revolution of 1944, the city began to grow dramatically. Industrial expansion created jobs which drew people to the city. The failure of land reform denied opportunities for many people in the countryside. The earthquake of 1976 and subsequent violence in the Highlands encouraged people to move to the capital.

Now “vegetative growth”—as the demographers call it—promises to duplicate the size of the city every generation. The current population of greater Guatemala City is over two million and is projected to reach four million by 2020.

With urban growth have come the problems of modern cities: traffic, crime, water supplies and pollution. Marginal barrios, street children and the proliferation of informal street markets add to the list. But at the same time, growth has brought energy to the city, dramatic vertical and horizontal expansion, new commercial centers and wider entertainment and cultural opportunities.

What will it lead to? What will the city look like in the next 20-30 years? What will it be like for its citizens? Will it recreate the fabled tacita de plata of yesteryear? A center of creativity, or a new urban jungle reminiscent of the New York of “West Side Story,” the London of Dickens or the Paris of “Les Miserables”?

Río Dulce, Guatemala (photo: Scott Drennan)

Written by Gregory Kipling photo: Scott Drennan

Exploring Río Dulce Past and Present

Measuring a mere 42 kilometers from source to mouth, Río Dulce is hardly one of Central America’s great waterways. However, despite its small size the river has attracted a great deal of attention over the past 500 years. Conquistadors, scientists, pirates and adventurers have all passed through in search of riches and glory, followed in more recent times by banana tycoons and other entrepreneurs eager to exploit Guatemala’s lush tropical lowlands.

Although the Q’eqchi’ Maya have a long history of settlement in the Río Dulce region, the river only makes its debut in history books in 1524 when Gil González Dávila became the first European to venture upstream as far as Lake Izabal. Turning back once it became clear the route did not provide a shortcut to the Pacific Ocean as he had hoped, González nonetheless established a small colony near the river mouth called San Gil de Buena Vista. Poorly planned and conceived, the settlement was a disappointment from the start, with tropical disease and attacks by indigenous raiding parties quickly decimating its population. Faced with the prospect of an early death, colonists abandoned San Gil at the first opportunity, ending. Spain’s only attempt to settle the lower reaches of Río Dulce during the colonial period.

However, Spanish authorities in Guatemala were not prepared to let the river slip into obscurity. Unhappy with existing trade routes which forced merchants to ship Europe-bound goods through ports in Honduras, they decided to establish a new terminus on the southern shore of Lake Izabal. Given its location relatively close to the resource-rich highlands, the port soon attracted a growing number of ocean-going vessels.

Unfortunately, these in turn aroused the interest of English, French and Dutch pirates, who would regularly lie in wait at the mouth of Río Dulce to ambush passing ships.

So began two centuries of mayhem and violence in which Spain suffered a string of losses, including the capture of its fortress at San Felipe and torching of its Lake Izabal port facilities. However, the Spaniards re-built and strengthened their defenses after each attack, and by the late 18th century piracy on Río Dulce had largely ceased. Still, bandits continued to lurk on the river’s tributaries well into the 1800s, occasionally venturing forth to make mischief or leave graffiti on Río Dulce’s famous piedra pintada rock escarpment.

Notwithstanding the presence of such troublemakers, Guatemala’s post-inde-pendence government was determined to exploit the Caribbean lowlands’ economic potential. Settlement of the region was encouraged, as was the cultivation of bananas, sugar cane and other crops. This in turn was good news for the mostly Garífuna residents of Lívingston, a small town that had sprung up on a promontory overlooking the mouth of Río Dulce. With sand bars and other obstacles making river navigation hazardous for large steamships, the town became the main Caribbean trans-shipment point for agricultural products bound for overseas markets.

In its heyday in the early 20th century, Lívingston enjoyed a booming economy, ample job opportunities and a growing population. However, the good times did not last long. Competition from nearby Puerto Barrios was fierce, and there was little the town could do once major banana producers decided to relocate their shipping operations farther down the coast. In the end, local people adjusted to the loss of freight traffic on the river the best they could. Some left in search of a better life elsewhere, while others went back to fishing and subsistence agriculture.

Almost a century later, life remains remarkably unchanged along the banks of Río Dulce. Despite the intrusion of cell phones and outboard motors, dugout canoes are still very much in evidence, as is the traditional culture of the local indigenous population. At the same time, the government has taken steps to safeguard the region’s unique flora and fauna by creating the Biotopo Chocón Machacas nature reserve. Located on the river’s north shore in an area known as El Golfete, the 7,600-hectare reserve is home to over 50 types of trees, 180 bird species as well as deer, manatees and jungle cats.

While the ecotourism opportunities afforded by the Chocón Machacas reserve and other nearby parks are a big draw for Guatemalan and foreign visitors alike, perhaps the best introduction to what the region has to offer is a Río Dulce cruise. Such trips can easily be arranged dockside in Lívingston, where boatmen charge per person for a six- to seven-hour tour.

Even if the weather is not always cooperative, the trip is sure to be memorable, with great views and photo opportunities the moment one enters the Cueva de la Vaca gorge just outside Lívingston. As the boat passes between towering cliffs draped with hanging vines, it is easy to imagine the awe that must have filled Spanish explorers when they sailed upriver for the first time. Soon, however, the topography begins to soften, and the thatched homes of the region’s Q’eqchi’ inhabitants become visible among the trees. This is an area where boatmen like to make several stops, giving passengers an opportunity to bathe in a thermal spring or observe wildlife in mangrove-lined lagoons.

The final leg of the excursion takes one through the wide but shallow Golfete and onward to San Felipe, where Río Dulce ends and the expansive waters of Lake Izabal begin. Guarding the lake entrance is Castillo de San Felipe de Lara, a restored colonial fortress complete with drawbridge, chapel and watchtower. After visitors take a leisurely stroll around the fort’s grounds and walls, the boat is ready to leave once more, this time to make the long trip back to Lívingston.

Stepping onto the pier after a day spent exploring Río Dulce from mouth to headwater, one begins to understand what drove the German adventurer Baron Alexander von Humboldt to proclaim the river to be the most beautiful in the Americas. Even if one does not share the baron’s penchant for bold statements, there is no question that he has chosen a worthy recipient on which to bestow such an honor.

This article was first printed in July 2003 (REVUE yr.12 #4)

Instructor Militza de León teaches a new menu every day with hands-on experience (photo: Jack Houston)

Written by Dianne Carofino

Where the excuse “I ate my homework” actually works

Outdoor dining at its best: under a 130-year-old avocado tree in the walled garden of a La Antigua colonial home. The menu? Traditional Guatemalan dishes: subanik—a four-meat stew with a spicy sauce of puréed roasted tomatoes and red peppers, white-dough tamal to soak up that rich sauce and escabeche, a cooked vegetable salad served at room temperature. More about the food later—we haven’t gotten to dessert yet. On to our dinner companions: four congenial travelers and La Antigua residents sharing their Guatemala experiences—its food, its history and its traditions. A private dinner party? No. An expensive restaurant? No. The Antigua Cooking School.

Militza de León, a graduate of the Intecap Guatemalan culinary school, and Vilma McComsey, proprietor of The Antigua Cooking School, provide this setting and hands-on experience five days a week in central La Antigua. On the day I attended, Militza was the instructor. She resembled a casual hostess who had invited her guests into the kitchen to chat as she prepared our meals, thoughtfully providing each of us with a copy of her recipes to take home. 

Instructor Militza de León (photo: Jack Houston)

As invariably happens when guests dare to chat with the hostess in the kitchen, we were put to work. Militza gave us aprons and prepared dough and demonstrated how to make the tortillas needed for the meal. If you are picturing yourself rapidly patting dough back and forth between your palms, like the talented ladies in the restaurants and shops of La Antigua, you may be as surprised as I was by the reality of tortilla making.
 
Even though I conscientiously tried to follow Militza’s instructions, the dough stuck to my palms, creating holes in my tortilla; and the tortillas didn’t stay in that even circular shape but had edges resembling a rocky coast line. One tortilla folded on itself like an omelet as it was flipped on the griddle. Then, with a smile, Militza did a little something and the tortillas looked like tortillas. The edges were still uneven, but they looked edible, even inviting. Of course, we all got to eat our tortillas, with frijoles volteados and the guacamole which we had watched Militza make. Delicioso. 

Entradas over, it was time for dinner. As Militza prepared subanik, she discussed the dish to explore other interesting topics about the various cultures of Guatemala. Originally a ceremonial dish of Chimaltenango, prepared with large pieces of meat wrapped in a salt leaf and steamed in the ground, the stew is traditionally served with tamalitos blancos. Subanik might be loosely translated ‘spicy white dough’.

Today’s preparation modified the traditional on a number of counts. Three meats (tenderloin beef, chicken and turkey breasts) and the prepared sauce were steamed in Mashán leaves in the oven. The large leaves, which can be purchased in the market, were washed and arranged in a deep pot. The stew was then added on top of the leaves, which were tied decoratively with cibaque, a plant fiber used as a heavy string.  

Throughout the afternoon, while Militza used natural and traditional ingredients to the delight of her guests, she carefully modified her methods, both conversationally and in her written recipes, to accommodate settings in which these ingredients might not be available. A Dutch oven, although not providing the unexpected charm of the Mashán leaves tied with cibaque, can also be used to prepare the subanik. 
     

Classmates Dianne Carofino (left) and Paige Keck (right) get pointers from instructor Militza de León (photo: Jack Houston)

As we left, each of the group seemed to be thinking of ways to take our knowledge home with us. Paige was mulling over the amount of black beans to prepare for the week, back in Jersey City. I was trying to decide which of the other four menus I would try next—a different menu is presented each day of the week. Perhaps enchiladas on a Monday, or maybe tamales on Wednesday. But then, Pepián is so traditional to Guatemala, and that is Friday’s menu.

Antigua Cooking School is located at 5a av. norte #25-B (tel: 5990-3366) Online: www.antiguacookingschool.com

Predecessor of Edificio Capitol, right, circa 1930; the long gone former Cine Capitol is on the left, across the street. (photo: Sergio Cruz Arteaga)

Thirty years ago metropolitan Guatemala had fewer than half its current 3.6 million people. Today’s well-heeled suburbs in its southeast quadrant were separated from El Centro by receding pastures and gardens. Zone One had long gone to seed, but in the late 1970s an attempt to return it to respectability was launched on Downtown’s main drag, Sexta avenida, between calles 12 and 13.

If you believe in ghosts, you might think that the people who lived on this block a century ago had a hand in this. Back then, there was a convent that was eventually abandoned and replaced by liquor markets and clothiers. It is rumored that the nuns are buried there because in 1977 workmen laying the foundation for a building on nearby 7a avenida encountered a Catholic catacomb. The other building became Incredible Hulk, an electronics retailer. When the Hulk went belly-up in 2001, its shell was absorbed by the Capitol Building that fronts 6a avenida.

So it is that today the Centro Comercio Capitol, or simply Los Cápitol, fills the block across from the Hotel Royal Palace. At its 1979 inauguration, it was anchored by what was still a new concept for the U.S., but bristling futurism for Guatemala—a Cineplex.

Edificio Capitol, right; modern Cine Capitol is in its top floor. (photo: Dwight Wayne Coop)

Except out of curiosity—and even then only once—the moneyed folk never came. The nicer stores quickly fled south to zone 10’s Zona Viva and elsewhere—just as they had deserted Pasaje Rubio farther up the Sexta decades earlier. The few holdouts were hair salons, but these soon had competition and, today, level 3 is a Guiness-book concentration of clip joints. But it merits a look, even by the freshly clipped.

Level 3 is a corridor of striking mezzanines tiled with glass mosaics. It resembles gargantuan Star Trek transporters—in pleasant, sensory juxtaposition with the bouquet of shampoos. From the “transporter” rims you can spy the traffic of level 2, which has evolved or—if the nuns are still listening—degenerated into a hall of video arcades, pool halls, smoking, and general idleness. The arcades yield a deafening cacophony that leaks onto the street. The three upper levels, by contrast, are the Capitol’s engines of renaissance.

Level 4, formerly Sears, now houses the largest downtown branch of the Pais department-store chain, and some smaller shops that remain.

Level 5 was originally intended for parking. But few people who shop and play downtown have cars, so today it is a poor-man’s food court with bumper-cars in back and internet cafes in front.

The food court, the largest room anywhere in Zone One, has molded fiberglass seating in primary colors, as if kindergarten teachers had been consulted for the décor. Near the elevator landing, the walkway to the food court and arcade begins; from it, you can look out a huge window at a fine vista of Downtown Guatemala. Level 5 is, overall, assuring and eclectic, and soothing despite its noise. It is Zone One’s most public place under a roof.
Downtown web surfing, which began on level 5, now abounds in Zone One. Though many customers come to play games, students are lured by hourly rates that are half those of the Zona Viva.

Movies are cheaper, too; on Wednesdays, at the cines upstairs on level 6, tickets are half-off, so one can catch the big screen for about a dollar—with the “waterfall” next to the escalator thrown in. An irony of the Capitol’s evolution is that parking was at first atop the building, with the cinema in its bowels. Today, the parking is in the basement, and the eight chambers of the Cine Capitol roost up on level 6. A further irony is that the elegant carved pews of the old Cine Real have given way to utilitarian buckets.

People who visit Downtown are uncovering other signs of life: new museums, restored parks, art galleries and the occasional nice store. But no exploration is complete without a stop at the Sexta’s own time tunnel, Los Cápitol.

Pasaje Aycinenea circa 1924

A more credible time trek can be taken in downtown Guatemala in only 22 minutes. Long before climate-controlled malls in Minneapolis, there were, and still are, Zone One’s pasajes. Exploring them affords a cobwebby peek at el Centro as it was when the pasajes were echo-chambers for dawn reveilles of machine-gun rat-tatting, martial doggerel and coups d’etat.

Four fascinating pasajes abut the Plaza de Armas, that square enclosed by the National Palace, National Library and National Cathedral. The fourth edge is home to banks, a vegetarian diner, camera and shoe shops, an arched colonnade, and two of these time tunnels.

Begin on 7th Avenida, a half block south of the plaza. Facing the entrance to Edificio del Centro (downtown’s tallest building) is the aperture of Tunnel 1, the rust-red Real del Parque. Go in.

This least historical tunnel is included as a foil to the others and as a glimpse, not of what downtown was, but what it aspires to. Elsewhere in the city are new, sprawling counterpoints to this mall, though none has its garish, high-density charm.

Real del Parque circa 1928

This tunnel leads outside, to bustling 8th Calle. Turn right, go two-and-a-half blocks. When you reach Telas Líder, a cavernous old yardage mart, cross the street.
With all the clutter, you could almost miss Pasaje Savoy—Tunnel 2. But once in, you are standing before a big-screen clunker Motorola broadcasting The Time Tunnel. Its regression of fluorescent lights recalls the shiny ribs of the old TV prop. All that is missing is for the two time travelers to corporealize.

Real del Parque newly restored

Return to the present by exiting Savoy on 7th Calle. Go left for half a block, then right for 10 meters, then left again at the La Tirada building. To your left, as you walk, is the Mercado Central, an underground comb of tunnels on five split levels—all “dug” after the 1976 earthquake. On its above-ground parking lot, there once stood the spectacular neo-classic pre-quake mercado.

The newly restored Pasaje Aycinena

When you re-emerge into the light—this tunnel has no roof—look back. You see the door you came through and the outline of two others, one arched and wide enough for a carriage. The space between them is now filled by a cubby-hole enterprise.

Before you exit Pasaje Aycinena through the arch on 9th calle, look up and marvel at the contrast of the Pasaje’s ornamented vaults with Edificio del Centro’s utilitarian angles. Back on the sidewalk outside, you are again in the 21st century. But turn right and walk 25 meters to Tunnel 4, to sample yet another slice of the past.

The aperture to Pasaje Rubio is a wormhole flagged by glass-walled galaxies of jewelry. Now enter what other historians call Guatemala’s first centro comercial. Its founder, Señor Rubio—no one recalls his first name—built it as a place for the elite to shop and dine. Until 2008, its liver-spotted complexion and patchy floor made it seem old for its 80 years; today, the well-to-do (excepting coin hounds) rarely shop here. But despite the wrinkles in its original ambience, it remains a time-strolling venue. Except for an appliance dealer, every store retains some of its original character.

A coin-and-stamp store is a miniature museum and one of only three numismatic retailers in town. It is one of a dozen locales exhibiting everything from taxidermy to antique knives and dolls. Almost next door is where the late Policarpio Mejía, “King of Luck,”

once reigned. Owing to self-promotion and customer superstition, Policarpio and his heirs are periodically celebrated in newspapers as a source of winning lottery tickets. For years, people from the provinces went out of their way to visit the king. There is a belief that Pasaje Rubio itself is lucky, so the lottery in every permutation has become its chief commodity.

A certain Frenchman visited 45 years ago—but not to see Policarpio. He had read a mention of Pasaje Rubio in a yellowing pre-World-War-II architectural journal and—as a photographer—was intrigued. But Rubio was already in decay, and the man left in a huff without taking a single photo. Why was he blind to its charms? Perhaps from his jading acquaintance with early malls in rundown parts of Paris. But in Guatemala, nothing compares with Rubio, then or now.

Betancourt, a dimly-lit stationer near the asymmetric fork in Rubio’s middle, resembles an outside storefront; nobody knew, when it opened, how centro commercial stores were supposed to look. The place is layered with the strata of time and the ghosts of Guatemalan intellectuals who once browsed the shelves.

“Rubio,” explains Betancourt’s proprietress, “was a living ruin for decades because Mr. Rubio sold out to the individual shopkeepers. We couldn’t agree on anything. When the place needed painting, we couldn’t agree on the color. The floors and windows needed fixing, too. But when we passed the hat, some merchants didn’t chip in. Others squabbled over what their share should be.”

Next to Betancourt, you could buy a book from Edgar Jahnig. His hole-in-the-wall nook was a pasaje within a pasaje, wide enough for just one person at a time. His family immigrated from Germany when he was a boy, and Jacobo Arbenz was President when Edgar opened for business in 1951. Over the years, he became a beacon for Germanic bibliophiles, and every third bargain book on his sagging shelves was in German. A steel portón now seals Don Edgar’s memory; he died last year.

There is more to Rubio than its ossified locales. As you stroll through, look not just left and right, but up at the dilapidated grandeur of its second and third floors, and you will feel you are in another era. Take a stairway to the upper levels, which are mostly small apartments. From behind the spindled railings you can look down on Rubio´s movie-set vibrancy and wonder: “if these walls could talk …”And so they can—to mice. On the other tine of Rubio’s fork was a wedding accessory shop, Novias Camelia. Over the decades, for a few hours each day, a gifted raconteuse showed up to work her day job. The Rubio owes its private literary heritage to the fertile imagination of María del Carmen Escobar, most famously in 49 Cents of Happiness, a novel narrated by a mouse. The joys and heartbreaks it chronicles are thinly fictionalized, giving us a snapshot that is gossipy and whimsical on the one hand, but instructive on the other.

In Rubio’s core, near the fork, is its most time-proof artifact: Guatemala’s oldest continuously operated restaurant, El Portal, which—like María Escobar—is a whole other story.

In 2008, Rubio was remodeled and repainted for the first time that anyone remembers. But it is only a makeover; the place is still timeless, still bathed in gold, somewhere you can touch the city’s soul.