Fridas owners Lola Aycinena and Maggie Mondragón

What started out as a tiny neighborhood taqueria with only two tables celebrates its 16th anniversary this month as well as a prestigious honor from Trip Advisor.

Now a dining favorite with 30 tables in La Antigua Guatemala, Fridas Cocina Mexicana & Bar serves authentic Mexican cuisine seven days a week in a spacious location at Calle del Arco #29, just a few steps north of the Santa Catalina Arch.

Indicating positive reviews from its patrons, Fridas last month received a Certificate of Excellence for 2011 from Trip Advisor.

Long before Frida became a pop icon, the artist-wife of muralist Diego Rivera had already been a favorite of restaurant co-founders Maggie Mondragón and Lola Aycinena. In fact, they used Frida posters and memorabilia from their own homes to decorate the original location on 4a calle poniente when it opened in 1995.

“We opened a small bar with stools down each side, two tables in the center and the grill in back where we cooked the beans and made the tacos, burritos and nachos,” Lola recalled.

“Like most people opening a business, we never knew what to expect. But we were really packed–of course, it was small, it was easy to be packed,” Maggie said. “Maybe it was our margaritas, maybe it was our enthusiasm, maybe it was our lucky star, but after the first three months, we were counting the money and we said, ‘Wow, we sold a lot of margaritas last night!’”

In 1996, about a year after opening, Lola and Maggie moved Fridas to its present location near the landmark arch. In 1998, they opened El Atico lounge upstairs in the same location. The place looks better than ever after remodeling in 2010 following a fire that affected neighboring Nim-Pot and the former Librería el Pensativo.

Just as seating has expanded, so has the menu, still offering mouth-watering tacos but also such cuisine as cochinita pibil, mole poblano and crepes with huitlacoche (a real Mexican delicacy), with home delivery available, too. There’s live music on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Thursdays come with an added bonus—two-for-one margaritas and mojitos. There are different ofertas all the other weekdays, too. The kitchen usually opens at 11 a.m. Salud!

For reservations or delivery call 7832-1296 or visit www.lasfridas.com for more information.

“You can buy it as your house or buy it as a business—either way it’s the same price!” said Hartmut Zersch, the previous owner. With that agreed to, Mesón Panza Verde, La Antigua Guatemala’s first European-style bed and breakfast which opened in 1986, had two new owners: Laurel Jacobson and Bruce McCowan.

For the first half dozen years after assuming ownership in October 1992, Laurel (who decided to keep it running as a business) was in charge since Bruce was still commuting to New York City, trying to escape the buzzing sound of Wall Street.

They raised two beautiful girls, Tara and Kendra, and built a successful business, which is now known as an Antigua institution. Throughout all this time Antigua has always been home, and either Laurel or Bruce or both were very much in evidence.

As anyone who has been to Panza Verde knows, its signature is good design and good taste. Laurel was the principle designer, but Bruce lays claim to the stone stairways and Park Avenue-style glass doors in La Cueva, which was a major addition to the original building in 2002.

La Cueva created one-third more restaurant space plus a stage for music several nights a week. Laurel’s interest for art and yoga inspired the yoga studio/art gallery, where monthly art shows and daily yoga classes take place. Also at this time the hotel was doubled by adding six beautiful new suites, each with extraordinary baths. The ambiance is eclectic Spanish Colonial, with a marked Moroccan influence. As one friend notes, “the newest part looks the oldest.”

Their latest undertaking is Villas B’alam Ya, a beautiful four-villa property that opened last December at Lake Atitlán. Located lakeside at Km 4 on the road to Santa Catarina Palopó, it is the perfect weekend or weeklong, full-service getaway. Each villa has unobstructed views of the lake and the surrounding volcanoes. Visitors can swim, kayak and learn to row a sculling hull or simply relax in a tropical garden with numerous private spaces to read, enjoy the abundant bird life, do yoga or meditate.

For Laurel, the business is all about creative design, compelling atmosphere, good food and service. For Bruce, his passion is really about Panza Verde’s great food and the fun. They are a good team!
In honor of the 25th anniversary, Panza Verde will have specials on wine, gourmet dishes and hotel rooms throughout October.

Every day of the month there will be a free appetizer offered so diners will get to know different items on the menu. In addition, there will be a grand anniversary performance-art party on Oct. 29 starting at 7 p.m. This will be a fun event where many performance artists will have cameo acts throughout the evening. A Cuban jazz band will provide dance music. The Q100 entrance fee covers drinks and hors d’oeuvres. The staff of Panza Verde thanks all of you for 25 years of patronage.

Check www.panzaverde.com for specials or more information.

Many years ago, Viaventure purchased a school bus and had it driven down to Guatemala from the United States by two staff members. The bus was never used to the extent that had been anticipated by the La Antigua-based tour operator; it remained parked for long periods of time.

During a recent conversation with friends from Global Visionaries, the idea came up to turn the bus into an environmental and educational unit, with a focus on reforestation. Viaventure directors agreed to donate the bus, which now is undergoing a makeover for its new role.

Global Visionaries is a non-profit NGO, which has been building schools and planting trees for the last 15 years in Antigua Guatemala, and the Viaventure Foundation has been supporting its cause for many years.

—Kevin García, Viaventure

In establishing FITE, Dermalogica partnered with the KIVA organization, a non-profit microfinance leader that provides loans to people without access to traditional banking systems.

Dermalogica has also launched a new product line, Ultra Calming, which was developed for people with sensitive skin. The launch event featured Leanne McCliskie, Dermalogica’s education manager, along with the staff of Dermalogica Guatemala.

These new products can be found in the Beauty Esthetic International Spa and the best spas of Guatemala, and purchases will support women entrepreneurs in Guatemala.

With locations in La Antigua and Panajachel, Porta Hotels demonstrates its commitment to Guatemala’s culture and environment hand in hand with the comfort, luxury, highest quality and security in lodging and dining services.

Porta Hotels received the gold level, the highest, based on sustainable tourism global standards set by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council.

Carmen Rosa Pérez, executive director of the GREAT Green Deal program, said, “We are satisfied with the performance shown by Porta Hotel Antigua and Porta Hotel Del Lago, whose staff, starting with the highest positions through the lower-grade employee, has understood the meaning of tourism sustainability and has put into practice the sustainability policies they promote: Order in the administrative management, high quality and security for local and foreign tourists, efficiency in natural resources saving, promotion and support to the destination where they operate, constant training and fair treatment to employees, as well as environmental conservation, especially at Lago de Atitlán.”

The Rainforest Alliance offers training to tourism businesses and provides them with the tools and techniques they need to run efficiently and sustainably.

For more information about Porta Hotels visit www.portahotel.com and visit www.rainforest-alliance.org for details.

La Camioneta is a feature-length documentary about the “afterlife” of American school buses and the people who make it all possible. After 10 years or 150,000 miles on the road, American school buses are often deemed no longer usable and often end up at one of the country’s many used-bus auctions. From there, a sizable percentage of these buses end up in Guatemala, where their life and their appearance are completely transformed. This is the story of the people who risk it all to bring these buses back to life.

Beginning at a used school bus auction in the States and following the bus and its new owner on their 3,000-mile journey to the highlands of Guatemala, La Camioneta documents the entire process of how a school bus is bought, sold, exported, re-equipped and, ultimately, reborn. Through a combination of vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film explores the personal, social and economic realities that fuel the trajectory of a school bus’ life.

Once in Guatemala, drivers rent the vehicles by the day and they get to keep whatever proceeds are left after paying for fuel, protection and a meager salary for a fare collector. The faster you go, the more money you make. However, there’s no governmental oversight to make sure that the subsidized buses are safe, that drivers are charging the standard rate, or that they are even operating on their assigned route. To make things worse, local gangs extort protection money, or la renta, from drivers who pass through their territory.

This is a film about consumerism, transmigration, personal expression, family and faith. It’s a story about life, death and rebirth… on the road.

La Camioneta is Mark Kendall’s graduate-level thesis film for the Social Documentary Film MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

For more information and to watch a trailer for the film, please visit: www.facebook.com/lacamionetafilm or lacamionetafilm.wordpress.com

HSI will be working in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Nicaragua with three cooperatives. The goal of the program is for the cooperatives to meet environmentally-friendly certification requirements, thereby enhancing their marketing efforts and the biodiversity in the cooperatives and surrounding areas. HSI’s program trains the cooperative members to conduct wildlife inventories. The cooperatives have already cataloged at least 43 mammal, 40 bird and 120 plant species living within and around the cacao farms.   
Uses of the new grant money include:

◗ Training producers on certification requirements for different sets of environmentally-friendly certification standards.
◗ Technical support to improve productivity and quality of cacao (such as trainings and manuals on pruning, organic fertilizers, etc.).
◗ Planting genetically superior trees on the cacao farms, and offering training on micrografting (combining a superior tree to an existing tree to improve the quality of the inferior tree).

“This program is beneficial to people, animals and the environment. The producers benefit from receiving increased income from their high quality cacao, and animals and the environment benefit from the protection provided for them by the producers as part of their environmentally-friendly certification.  It is truly a win-win situation,” said Marta Prado, executive director of International Trade and Development for HSI.

This grant is both a continuation and expansion upon the work HSI has been doing in the region since 2003. HSI also received a grant from the State Department to work on habitat protection through the production of sustainable cacao in 2007.

Media contact: Kristen Everett, 301-721-6440, keverett@humanesociety.org

The Humane Society of the United States is the nation’s largest animal protection organization — backed by 10.5 million Americans, or one of every 30. For more than a half-century, the HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty — On the web at humanesociety.org