Rojo (photo by Rudy A. Girón)

This rich red color cries out for attention, from ALTO signs to garden blossoms to a flag announcing fresh meat at the village butcher. No wonder that cardinal signs are used by the big cola companies, a big phone service and most market chains. Your assignment this month, however, is to spot more subtle touches of cardinal-red among the bright blues and greens and browns and whites of Guatemalan towns and farms.

Finding cardinal in the fruit and vegetable markets is easy: apples from the Highlands, red pepper and chili in baskets, fat radishes in neat pyramids. Cardinal coffee berries are mostly picked by now, but enough still dot the fincas to catch the eye of passers-by. Some huipil weavings, such as the woman’s blouses of Patzún, are dazzling cardinal red; other brocades from San Antonio Aguas Calientes weavers have more subtle touches of cardinal.

It’s in gardens and along roadsides that sprinkles of cardinal stand out. Actual cardinals flutter by year-around in the Petén jungles, and macaws preening in their cardinal feathers munch seeds in some hotel-garden cages. Cardinal poppies dot the highway from Mexico to Salvador, springing up in dirt patches from recent slides. Tanagers and woodpeckers flash their cardinal feathers as they take their morning splash in our fountain, while the neighbor’s poinsettias don’t realize that the holidays are over and continue their cardinal show against the white walls.

But the best displays of cardinal in February come in crayon Valentine drawings from a child, and in a bouquet of long-stemmed red roses from a lover. May you be fortunate enough to receive either or both this month in Guatemala!

Ventas navideñas de los campos del Roosevelt (photo by Roberto Urrea)

Christmas colors in Guatemala don’t stop with red and green, and dreams of a white Christmas must also include the entire rainbow. Yes, the brilliant red poinsettias and fragrant green pine needles, the ripe red berries and deep green leaves of the coffee trees, give all Central America the traditional Christmas colors of much of the world, but holidays in Guatemala don’t stop there.

Despite the usual spring-like weather, under a deep bowl of sky-blue, every other color comes to brighten December in Guatemala. Fire-red begins the month, with bright bonfires flaming against deep dark skies on the night of December 7 with the Quema del Diablo, the Burning of the Devil. Meanwhile, plants and trees that don’t bloom in the winter of the northern hemisphere burst into Christmas colors for Central America: purple jacarandas, scarlet pie-de-gallos, bright little yellow gourds, golden manzanillas in bead-like strings and, of course, roses and carnations in every shade, creamy lilies and brilliant bougain-villea climbing the sunlit white walls to mix with the red tile roofs.

To see the full range of December shades, look at the woven head-baskets atop Mayan ladies in the markets and along the streets, filled with color to festoon their homes and to weave between windows on the buses, signifying the holidays. There may be a golden pineapple and orange-green citrus, some yellow or green squash and red tomatoes and generally bunches of fresh flowers for the table and home.

December is more a month of family celebrations than a commercial time, though red-suited Santas and green plastic trees sprinkle the streets by courtesy of some businesses. It’s in homes, at the back of little stores, at the entrances of hospitals and churches, that one finds the special blend of colors for a Guatemalan Christmas.

Nacimientos, nativity scenes that sometimes take up half the space of a family’s home, mix grey and silver mosses, green pine, golden little mountains and buildings, even sometimes flowing water, miniature people and animals and a tiny crib covered with a rich white cloth. Only at midnight on Christmas Eve does the youngest child of the family lift off the white cloth to the prayers of the others watching, unveiling the golden little child in the cradle.

Sounds are so important on Christmas Eve, too, loud sounds, part of the holiday. Marimbas lead dances all evening, with church bells incessantly ringing as midnight approaches. Then giant bombs, strings of firecrackers and shattering mortar blasts take over to temporarily deafen those too close and to echo in every part of town. But Christmas colors continue that night in the homes, brown tones of hot chocolate or coffee in the family’s best cups, grapes and apples in many shades and especially tamales colorados.

Christmas without red tamales would be like-well, it just wouldn’t be. Every family kitchen has been busy making the special holiday treat, ready for this evening, the deep green wrapper holding soft brown meal stuffed with maroon and purple meats. A tamal for everyone is important, to share with friends and the whole neighborhood.

Christmas Day and evening quiets down, but the year-end holidays don’t stop, flowing on into January, even to the start of Lent. Why should colorful nacimientos be limited to December or the celebrations end with the Rose Parade or Super Bowl as in the North? Many of the nativity scenes are too delightful to go quickly and too symbolic to lose in a home. Green pine and red poinsettias continue for weeks as bright decorations. The rainbow colors of Guatemala are for every day of the year, with a special mix of traditional colors saved for these weeks of joyful holiday

photo: Ventas navideñas de los campos del Roosevelt by Roberto Urrea (cc license)

Spices are important in Guatemalan cooking, especially in many sweets and drinks around the holidays. Spice colors are rich in the landscape this month also, which seems fitting as spices were what the Europeans sought when they first sailed west to bump into these shores. Guatemala produces some spices, but joins the rest of the world in adding clove, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and other spice flavorings and aromas to holiday cooking. Meanwhile, Highland hillsides and gardens are brushed this month with such spice colors as tans, golden yellows, browns, reds and greens.

Dona Catalina puts handfuls of cloves and ginger into her Christmas fruit punch. Dona Audrey makes a savory midnight cake with fresh vanilla extract from local beans. Dona Amanda always adds sticks of cinnamon to cups of her thick, hot chocolate. And of course many Guatemalans serve black, smoky cardamom seeds with their brewed coffee.

Cardamom is a major Guatemalan export. This country edged out Nepal a few years ago to be the world’s leading producer of cardamom seeds, pods and powder to flavor Indian, Nordic, Middle Eastern and other worldwide cuisines. Cumin is also a big export, and is used in many Guatemalan recipes. Mayan tradition says eating some cumin each day keeps both chickens and lovers from straying. We’ve not tested that, but if the Maya say so, it must be true.

Fenugreek grows here too. Maybe you don’t recognize this spice growing wild along the roads, but you’d know the flavor in many dishes. Fenugreek aroma is like maple, as people in New York City learned when a fenugreek extract processor across the Hudson spread the scent throughout the city, just as fenugreek added to Guatemalan recipes fills the kitchen with that pungent maple-syrup odor.

Surely the spiciest addition to Guatemalan holidays is the cobanero chili from Alta Verapaz, hotter than many poor gringo mouths can tolerate, but forming a perfect color combination when woven into holiday wreaths. Cobanero is a shiny green pepper when young, turning into a finger of deep red when mature, colors blending into a perfect holiday decoration as well as chili adding an unforgettable flavor to spicy dishes, if you’re up to the heat.

Spice flavors and spice colors are all around you to enjoy as you wait to hear spicy salsa music at holiday celebrations. Take it all in with your taste buds, eyes and ears. Just be careful with even a touch of cobanero chili should you have a little cut!

San Cristóbal Ixchiguán (photo by Thor Janson)

Brown gets bad press. People feel bad and say they’re in a brown mood. When one U.S. president wore a brown suit, his staff knew they were in for a tough day. But watch some of the street artists under the golden-brown arch in La Antigua Guatemala as they mix their oils to make a brown: a squeeze each of orange and red. A squeeze of rose, a touch of yellow. A little black, maybe some gray. Beautiful colors, blended just right. And there on the palette, a lovely shade of oil paint for the colonial walls, a darker shade for the hills, lighter again for paths through a coffee finca, or maybe for a painting of the coffee itself, drying.

Brown shades fill the milpas, the corn fields, this season as the old stalks await being turned under. Brown strings of peanut plants stretch on mountainsides in neat rectangles of farms, matching the brown nuts themselves being sold by street vendors. Wheat fields in the Highlands wave greetings in brown, and kelp on the seacoasts flash a deeper reddish-brown.

Mix your palette for your own painting of the Guatemalan countryside, and you’ll need dozens of shadings of brown to do it right: light browns for the walls, deeper browns in the shadows, dark brown for the volcanoes in the dusk. Brown-skinned children at play, browned surfers on the beaches, brown horses plodding with tourists in carriages along the cobblestone-brown streets. You might want to include on your canvas a mahogany-brown table with a light brown tortilla and barbecue-browned meat, or brown beans in a broth of golden-brown cheese. Brown can be tasty indeed.

Brown’s not so bad, mixed right to show off the Mayan pyramids against the green jungle and blue skies. Or brown on village casas, brown sausages hanging in market stalls, brown monkeys swinging at play. Don’t let brown put you in a bad mood–enjoy brown at its best around Guatemala.

October’s opal birthstone treats the eye with an explosion of colors refracted through the soft stone, just as Guatemala’s gardens explode with magnificent rainbows of flowers bursting vigorously as the rainy season eases. Guatemala rock hounds find significant deposits of precious opals here, but you can enjoy their bright bursts of color everywhere in the country without having to get your hands dirty in digging—just look around you.

Opals range from white and gray through red, orange, yellow, green, blue, magenta, rose, pink, slate, olive, brown to black. Those vibrant colors are displayed throughout this land of eternal spring, in the hillsides, farms and gardens as well as in the Mayan weavings, colorful walls and bright coastline.

We’re told that opals are just sand, created by Paleolithic hot springs. Opals are soft, up to 30 percent water, each gem reflecting specific wavelengths. The clear and clean air of the Highlands doesn’t fuss with such limited wavelengths. Rainbow opal colors are everywhere here, changing like the gemstone in the range of light each day from dawn to dark.

And ah, that dark of Guatemala each night, if you get away from the big city. Around the lakes, along the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, throughout Highland farmlands and hillsides, the velvety dark on moonless nights is as rich as any black opal. Drink in the soft colors of the night and the brilliant shades of day. You’ll see why another word for Guatemala is the opalescent land.

Tambores (photo: Leonel Mijangos - EnAntigua.com)

Loud, proud bass drumbeats in school parades; sad, slow beats of mourning in funeral processions; rapid, staccato snare drum ruffles accompanying glockenspiel chimes: Drums are part of human culture worldwide, but Guatemalan drumbeating is especially vigorous, more than ever in this month of patriotic celebrations.

Archaeologists have uncovered many pieces of unadorned drums in digs into the oldest of Mayan lower-class housing sites. More elegantly decorated drums are depicted on many pre-Classic Maya pots and murals. Simple tambor beats continue millenniums later in traditional Mayan ceremonies. Drumming is within our souls, the infant beating with his spoon, the executive drumming fingers on the desk at boring meetings. However, those beats in the school parades are drums you really feel, waves of sound from dozens of big bass drums marching down the town’s narrow streets and echoing off the stucco walls.

Most schools throughout the country have drum-and-bugle corps—well, really they’re drum-and-glockenspiel marchers, maybe with one or two wind instruments. The metallic notes from vigorous student glockenspiel players are a steel version of the wooden tones from the country’s traditional marimbas. Watch the school troops practice along the streets, then watch them march proudly in independence celebrations. The shortest, smallest glockenspiel player-pounder seems to get the loudest sound out, though never enough to overpower the rows of enthusiastic snare drummers and bass beaters.

Enjoy the sound—and the feel—of all the drums of Guatemala, through schoolhouse windows in practice sessions, sweeping past you in parades, thumping in village ceremonies. Every day is drum time around here.

Lightning storm approaches Antigua from the west (photo: Guido Lucci)

INVIERNO, winter, is here. It’s the rainy season, and all our senses know it, even though most days still have lots of sunshine in the Guatemalan Highlands around La Antigua Guatemala, and temperatures continue to be mild. Drizzles, showers, deluges, each day’s touch of rain is different, something for all five senses.

The colors of our rain shade from light silver through pewter to steel-gray, with misty curtains shading the volcanoes some days, or hiding them completely in dark velvet drapery. Photographers love to capture the reflective puddles on the cobblestones, while painters brush in the metallic tones seen in the skies. Then the sun breaks through, and the just-washed leaves and blossoms flash rich colors.

The odor of rain can be pungent when the soil first gets wet, then fresh and clean as the showers wash away any trace of unpleasant exhaust or dust. Occasionally there’s a whiff of burning wood from a fireplace, sometimes the special smell of cedar logs. Lightning displays add nitrogen to the soil and its unique ozone aroma to the nose. The scent of wet dogs or woolen clothing, the smell of tortillas or meat sizzling on a grill, the musky damp of laundry hanging limp on the line, each adds a touch to the seasonal odor around town.

The touch of rain on the face can be as gentle as a baby’s hand caressing a mother’s cheek, or as bracing as a high dive into a cold pool. The taste of rain can be refreshingly clean, as every child knows from sticking out his tongue to catch a few drops.

Ah, but it’s the sense of sound during rainy invierno afternoons that’s so very special around the town, light rain sounding like little bells, heavier rain like marimba from the rooftop, occasional kettle-drum tympani on the clay tiles overhead while you’re curled up inside by a gentle fireside with a good new book.

The rainy season can mess up traffic, bring some leaky roofs to drip into hastily placed pots, require tourists to scoot into a nearby shop until the shower eases up. But don’t let our invierno spoil your day. Tune on each sense and appreciate the metallic shades, the pungent smells, the wet touch, the restoring taste, the musical sounds of the season.

Bronze bells photo by Rudy Girón

You can see it, hear it, taste and smell it, even touch it. All the senses get involved with bronze in Guatemala. Bronze metal is seen and heard in church bells, of course, and bronze tones cover the hillsides in the reddish-brown fields of peanut and wheat. Light tan coffee beans are bronzed during roasting, giving off wonderful aromas. Then you can hold some bronze shades and taste them in brewed coffee, fresh breads, and handfuls of peanuts and macadamia nuts, all grown here. In the markets, you can spot several flowers in bronze tones, as well as some bronze-tone nursery plants ready for export.

The alloy of copper, tin, and other metals that we call bronze can be traced 6,000 years back to its discovery in Iran and China. On its own, Mesoamerica developed bronze too – probably coming north from the Moche and Inca peoples through Central America around 600 A.D. Little bronze rings and bells, made by the lost-wax process, have been found in Copán, Honduras; near Guatemala City in Kaminaljuyú, in Quiriguá and Tikal; and north near the Mexican border at Huehuetenango’s Zaculeu site.

The ancient Maya must have liked the brilliant sounds and colors evoked through the movement of bronze adornments. Then the Spanish conquerors brought bronze church bells, and Guatemalans copied and molded their own bronze bells. The Spanish mixed about a quarter tin to three-quarters copper for their bronze. They knew that the more tin, the more the timbre drops. Some of the largest bells in La Antigua Guatemala churches, such as at La Merced and Escuela de Cristo, came from Spain and are about 30 percent tin. In Guatemala, bell-makers found they could add some silver to the alloy for bigger bells, and keep the timbre lighter. Listen around Antigua at the bells calling to morning and evening prayers and you’ll hear bronze sounding over two full octaves, Spanish imports and homemade.

Guatemalan craftsmen continue to mix and mould bronze into ornaments and signs. In the craft market stalls, you can buy bronze both new and old. Fancy antique and funky sidewalk shops sell bronze candlesticks, snuffers, and ornaments. Meanwhile, do enjoy bronze for free in its other forms—bronze bougainvillea hanging over white walls, bronze coffee to taste and smell, all the church bells, and little hillside farms with their bronze-toned crops.

One of this month’s birthstones is beryl, a simple colorless crystal in its pure form. But Guatemala is never colorless, so to celebrate May we must find some impure beryl, which gemologists tell us can be green, blue, yellow, red, white. Whatever, it’s still beryl, with different names. Let’s go find this month one crystal from the impure-beryl list: aquamarine.

No beryl crystals are mined in Guatemala, but each of beryl’s shades is found all over the place. Especially aquamarine: See it in beryl-blue seacoasts, across clear Guatemalan skies, in the deep tones of aquamarine lakes set like gemstones between dark volcano cones.

Yes, aquamarine fits well in sensuous Guatemala. It’s a color easy to find everywhere—except in the flower stalls. Aquamarine-blue is rare in blossoms. However, this month some aquamarine-blue Dutch iris stems are on sale in the markets. Get them fast, and get them in fresh water quickly, for they don’t last long.
Aquamarine-blue tones are at our Caribbean beaches and sometimes in the Pacific. Aquamarine designs are in several huipiles, the typical blouses woven of cotton, a light blue touch that is created by dipping the thread quickly into indigo dyes, or by pouring tie-dye colors on twisted bundles of white thread stretched from spike to spike along roadways.

There’s a sea of aquamarine across the street from our house, a mile above the Pacific. But I don’t know if it counts as being very sensuous. A neighbor found some cheap aquamarine house paint, so he rolled it on the façade. Some was left over, so he rolled the bed of his elderly pickup truck with it. Still some left, so he painted the whole truck, dents and all, in aquamarine. When the truck is parked in front of the house, it’s hard to tell which is which. Not quite a glowing beryl crystal color, but certainly unique for sensuous Guatemala.

Colorful Semana Santa (photo by César Tián)

A fellow in Scotland coined the name and invented that mirrored tube he called the kaleidoscope, an “observer of beautiful colors.” We don’t need his device to see swirls of beautiful colors that form our sensuous Guatemalan kaleidoscope all year.

Color, sound, aromas, tastes and touch are especially strong throughout Lent, from confetti and fireworks at the start, then through 40 days of solemn processions, rich bunting on buildings, deep-toned robes, crowded streets, Lenten foods, all culminating with Palm Sunday, Good Friday and the Easter weekend.

Intricate alfombras, carpets of flowers, greens and dyed sawdust that are laid before a holy procession, and then remade for the next shuffling column of penitents in purple robes, combine every tone and texture. No kaleidoscope is required to be dazzled by the hundreds of carpets created on the cobbled streets throughout the season.

The Semana Santa kaleidoscope of Guatemala includes more than just the one sense of sight. Every sense becomes overwhelmed at procession time. The heavy incense, the doleful dirges, the traditional foods and the press of the crowds assault us with pungent odors, steady drumbeats, sharp tastes and close touch.

It’s almost too much.

Take some quiet moments between processions back at one’s home or hotel, or in a garden away from the intense assault on all senses.

Taste the acidic incense smoke in your mouth, feel the gritty dust kicked up by hundreds of shuffling feet. Breathe in the bittersweet smell of corozo, tan plumes from inside a large pod, an aroma that will stay with you as the fragrance of Lent in Guatemala.

You’ll hear in your dreams the funeral marches of the procession bands, which will continue in your lifetime travel memories. You’ll see the kaleidoscope colors again when you edit your pictures and remember what you and all your senses experienced.

Chocolate is coming back home to Central America, good chocolate at last. The cacao plant has been cultivated here for at least three millennia, the bean used as beverage and a food ingredient. Archaeologists found evidence of cacao cultivation at sites dating back to 1400 BC, with carvings of Maya enjoying the frothy, bitter drink.

Spanish conquerors took chocolate to Europe, to English coffee houses, to the Dutch who developed chocolate bars, and to exquisite Swiss and Belgian creations, while Central America suffered without really good chocolate until recently.

Guatemalan chocolate candy of the last century has been pretty bad—grainy and bland. Chocolate colors continued rich in loamy soil, dark chocolate after rains, milk chocolate tones where covered with wheat and peanut crops. But good eating and drinking chocolate was limited to imports or a few home kitchens.

Now wonderful chocolate is back. Taste hand-dipped candies in shops around La Antigua, Quetzaltenango and the capital city. Try cups of frothy chocolate in cafés. Nibble at finger-sized rolls of fine chocolate made by a few families in villages around Lake Atitlán, rolls in hand-colored wrappers of country scenes, available for a few coins in many little stores.

U.S. standards require only 15% chocolate liquor in chocolate candies. The European Union requires 35%. Good stuff goes up to 70% plus. And that’s the good stuff finally being produced in Central American candy kitchens.

A coffee-growing gringo near Antigua experimented with chocolate coating on roasted coffee beans, and bags of these adult treats are sold all over the country. No more need for European imports. Now you can taste fine chocolate while enjoying the chocolate tones as you travel through the Highlands. Chocolate is back home, and it’s delicious.

Semuc Champey by Thor Janson

Turquoise is just a stew of copper and aluminum, found in Turkey as in much of the world, a soft stone that’s a symbol for December and the holiday season. Turquoise was on the list of paint colors approved by the Spanish Colonial governments, and many little tiendas and homes continue to be painted turquoise blue. When our neighbor painted his house and door turquoise, he used the extra paint to cover his pickup, so it now blends into the walls when parked outside.

Pools of turquoise waters form at many of Guatemala’s hot springs. My favorites may be the resort of Semuc Champey near Cobán, in the Alta Verapaz Highlands, and the nearby Grotto of Lanquín, with pleasant year-round camping by the warm turquoise waters.

Most of magnificent Lake Atitlán is rich garnet blue, not at all turquoise. But just a few miles from Panajachel, off the village of Santa Catarina Palopó, the Bay of Peña de Oro stretches from the sandy beach in a soft turquoise. Mornings, fishermen’s canoes seem to float on a polished altar of turquoise, the dark volcano backdrop accentuating the light blue bay.

Turquoise-bodied hummingbirds work Guatemalan flowers year-round, not bothering to migrate north or south as do most of their hummingbird cousins. The Maya tell a legend of our hummingbirds protecting a young Maya chief, wounded in battle. When the wounds proved too grave, the hummingbirds created the quetzal bird from the chief, and hummingbird designs are still common on Mayan weavings.

Spanish padres during the Colonial centuries accepted pieces of turquoise found occasionally by miners. Look for these turquoise accents in most chapels and churches, reminders of December’s birthstone and the light blue color that’s beloved worldwide.

Pitaya flower (photo by Thor Janson )

Pearls are scattered across this favored country, ready for your discovery without your needing to bother getting wet or even opening an oyster. Our pearls can be found along roadways, wildflowers of translucent white that bloom most of the year, and in our gardens, from tiny white buttons of blossoms to creamy white roses. Pearls glisten on our cobbled streets as the moon emerges after an evening shower, and as beams from colonial-style street lights twinkle in the evening mist.

Pearls are embroidered as white dot symbols on several different Indian weavings. Pearls shine in the breakers along our beaches, and in the seafoam on the sand as the waves recede. Pearls sparkle on the tall hotels downtown, when seen from the hillsides as room lights turn on. Pearls light the rolling countryside at night when seen from a plane on approach to La Aurora airport, pale strings of lights in villages and along roadways that wind through the mountains.

For visitors from areas that don’t have them, the tiny lights of fireflies in Guatemalan trees seem magical. At sundown, swirls of white herons, returning to their nesting tree after a day harvesting leftover corn kernels in the milpas, can shine like necklaces of fat pearls in the crown of the sky.

We do share with all Earth bright pearls in the nighttime skies. On a clear, moonless night in the Guatemalan Highlands, our evening and morning “stars” of Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and all the constellations are especially lustrous against the velvet night. Come to think of it, the planets almost any night in Guatemala are prettier than any of the oyster pearls in royal crowns, and every one of us commoners can enjoy them.

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 of sapphire water, though the Highland lakes—especially deep-blue Atitlán—are gems of even deeper blue. Sapphires are scattered among the emerald grasses along highways, points of wildflower color that bloom after showers all year. In the markets, sapphire mums, lilies and statice are in floral stalls most months. Along the highway, startling sapphire storefronts are spotted while driving through villages, a paint color recently popular for schools, clinics, and even church facades. Our neighbor even painted his old pickup with the same sapphire he used to paint the front of his house.

Many of our favorite weavings by talented indigenous artisans include floral ornaments in sapphire, and some blouses around the Ixchel region are mostly rich blues. Pre-Columbian weavers found sapphire dyes in nature long before German traders began importing aniline dyes into Central America in the 1880s. They had discovered roots that gave their thread sapphire tones when boiled together.

Ah, but the richest sapphires are overhead, sometimes covered with curtains of fluffy clouds that part to unveil stunning blue skies. The heavenly sapphire of the Guatemalan sky is deep along the coasts, deeper when climbing into the Highlands, and deepest in the high mountain country of the Cuchumatanes and in Alta Verapaz. Parts of the world boast of being “big sky country;”

Guatemalans accept the sapphire skies and seas as part of their year-round pleasures. Enjoy it with them whether you’ve just visiting or living in this gem of a country.

Quetzal (photo: Thor Janson)

Yes, emeralds are found in our jewelry stores, but only imported gems. Emerald, however, is a rich sight in the Highlands of Guatemala, especially now with the rainy season polishing the leaves and enriching the grasses. And yes, we’ve our own emerald stones too, the deep imperial of Guatemala’s very special jadeite jewelry, but it’s the deep green tones of the hillsides and gardens that we’re really admiring this month.

As the Spanish had learned from the Moors, and brought to their colonies, most homes around La Antigua tuck their patios and gardens inside where families can use and enjoy them, instead of planting big lawns out front for neighbors to see. It’s considered fine to peek through open gates while walking around town, glimpsing the marvelous courtyards inside. Even if the great portons are closed along walled sidewalks, emerald leaves spill over the white facades, and there’s much more emerald in the coffee plantations and pine forests that surround us.

More emerald takes a bit more observation, and luck. The Antiguan city flags are emerald, at least when new before the brilliant sun fades them. On our patron saint celebrations this month, the municipal government usually breaks out a few new emerald flags, so enjoy them when you can.

Bellies of hummingbirds glisten with green flashes in the sun as they migrate north now and south in a few months. Down on the Pacific coast, emerald means a good field of sugar cane; up in Alta Verapaz, emerald might be seen if you’re lucky enough to find a quetzal bird fluttering among the emerald pines. Some sea turtles are deep emerald if you find them waddling along the beach or paddling alongside you in the water, and emerald tropical fish can be spotted in the warm waters of lowland lakes.

It’s a gem of color on our Guatemalan palette.

Processional Carpet (photo César Tián)

Breathe deep and enjoy some of the rich scents of this Lenten season! Enjoy the odors of Holy Week, with two pungent yet pleasant smells standing out in your memory. Use all your senses at the processions. See the colors of the carpets and vestments, hear the funereal bands and shuffle of feet, taste the incense smoke in the mouth, feel the press of the crowds (just watch out for the press of a pickpocket against you, please). And don’t forget to smell the roses, quite literally as thousands of rose petals will decorate those elegant alfombras, the intricate carpets made along procession routes.

Carpets can include citrus peels, chrysanthemum blossoms, spicy carnations, sweet hyacinth, each scent distinct yet blended pleasantly.

Great bundles of pine needles give base to many alfombras as they give off the smell of nearby forests. Sawdust, collected all year from local mills and furniture factories and dyed to give intricate detail on many alfombras, adds its own earthy odor.

The two standout smells that you’ll always identify with this season? One is the intense, sweet odor of a sticky golden fiber from inside the pods of several different types of palm trees. The pods themselves, several feet long and carried up from the coast, then split open in the shape of boats, are often used on carpets. The fibers scooped out from inside form crosses for doorway decorations. They are woven together with statice flowers to form gold-and-purple symbols of the coming Crucifixion, blessed and sold at the doorway of churches on Palm Sunday. Palm fibers are also used as borders and edges along many of the alfombras. You’ll never forget their distinct odor once you experience it.

Neither will you forget the pom incense, the crystallized tree sap burned to smudge and bless the procession routes. Some of the incense-bearers get particularly enthusiastic in swinging their braziers with smoldering pom, and the streets get thick with smoke. Sometimes the pom catches fire, the flames coming out of the silver container until the cucurucho swinging it snuffs out the fire. The incense is the other odor of your memories of Holy Week.

Yes, there are some less-pleasant odors too. The Roman soldiers, or rather their horses, add some farmyard piles on the cobbled streets as they ride before dawn on Good Friday to announce the Crucifixion. Cleanup crews with Bobcats and dump trucks sweeping up after the processions add unpleasant diesel smoke, though Antigua city government is converting most of their vehicles to a bio-fuel that’s much more pleasant, with their trucks smelling like burgers and fries.

Carry home lots of photos and videos of these holy celebrations. And carry home memories of the pungent scents, too. You’ll never forget the experience.

Semana Santa (photo: Leonel Mijangos/enantigua.com)

Colorful carpets, thumping bands, pungent odors, rich tastes, thick crowds—through the Lenten season, into Palm Sunday and Semana Santa, Holy Week, all five senses are overwhelmed in every Guatemalan city and village, but nowhere more than in La Antigua Guatemala with its colonial traditions and frequent processions.

Intricate floral designs, forming colorful alfombras, carpets, are most elaborate on Good Friday but delight the eye before every procession throughout this season. Purple robes, and sometimes white, red, black vestments, line the streets and drape penitents carrying saints through the streets, with banners of color on the homes of the faithful. In the markets, great bundles of multihued flowers, of green pine, yellow palm, brown bark, sawdust dyed in many shades, are stacked for sale for the carpets. All these are treats for the sense of sight.

Soft shuffling of hundreds of feet along procession routes. Loud and mournful bands following the statues of the saints. Even louder and incongruous rock from speakers entertaining the carpet-makers through the night, and loud mortars and strings of firecrackers. Horse hooves on the cobblestones as the actors playing Roman soldiers ride to announce the Crucifixion with shouts. Sobs and laughter, moans and cheers, murmurs of prayers from penitents in the processions and cries of laughter from children in the parks. And, of course, the joyful music of marimba, in restaurants and homes. All these are treats to be heard.

Pom, incense of burning pitch, forms thick clouds of smoke to cleanse the procession routes. A sweeter odor comes from the machines spinning cotton candy in the park, the sugary smell blended with charcoal grills with sizzling steaks and sausages. More subtle are smells of the blossoms, of the dust, of the crowds standing or shuffling in the sunshine, of the pine needles trampled underfoot. These and more are treats to be smelled.

The special tastes of traditional foods of the season, salads of beets, of smoked tuna, green olives, pickled eggs, candied fruits. The taste in the mouth of the incense smoke as the processions pass, or of the sweets sold by vendors following those processions. Strong coffee for carpet-builders, and draft beer for the spectators. Tamales and tacos and grilled carnes and fried bananas. There are so many holiday treats to be tasted.

Then there’s touch. Sore shoulders and feet for those carrying the heavy anda platforms with the carved saints. Sore backs for fathers carrying little ones on their shoulders to see it all. Sometimes unpleasant touch of people pressing so close together along the procession routes. Sometimes loving touch as couples and families hold hands as they walk among the marvelous carpets before those exquisite creations are destroyed by the marchers in the processions. Each special touch, each sensuous sight, sound, smell, taste, form unforgettable memories of the season, of Semana Santa in Guatemala.

Antigua Guatemala Roses

Many indigenous costumes include bright red, cotton dyed from the cochineal insect once raised as a major export, the same dye used for the British Redcoats’ uniform. The sister towns of Patzún and Patzicía dazzle with brilliant reds on the women’s blouses in their outdoor marketplaces, well worthy of a stop just off the Pan American Highway winding into the Highlands.

Sweet scents of valentines come from the thick chocolate melting on the stove for a morning drink, and the sugary sweetness from cotton candy spun on antique machines at festivals. If it’s true that you best reach a man’s heart through his stomach, the smell and sizzling sounds of meat on the grill might please him even more than the chocolate savories.

Other sounds of the season come from romantic valentine chords strummed by a guitar player in a shadowed courtyard or the joyful music from a marimba band in the plaza. On the cobbled streets, hear the clop of hooves from horses pulling lovers’ carriages, and the tap of high heels as a beautiful woman bustles along a sidewalk; the quiet pase adelante welcome from the shopkeeper, and the gentle buen provecho wishes from the server.
And feel the warmth of the February sun, the soft breeze on your cheek. Another valentine for you, from Guatemala.

Enjoy the month, through all the senses.

These days of celebrations bring colorful treats of greens, reds, golds and other holiday shades. All the senses enjoy December, with its rich foods to taste, velvet cloths to touch, carols to hear. The laughter of children, the ringing of the bells, the singing in the streets, all the sounds of the month join the colors and savors to enjoy.

But please take a few minutes each day this month to enjoy the scents of these holidays, all by themselves.
Some scents are easy and common: the fresh pine needles scattered on floors, the kitchen-pots bubbling with ponche and many other goodies, the pungent cups of chocolate.

Some scents are more subtle, such as fresh fruits simmering in sugar on the stove. Some are less pleasant but strong: the smoke from the fires of the day of the devil, the whiffs of powder from exploded firecrackers of the celebrations.

Roses are a year-around scent to enjoy in the Highlands, unlike colder areas where they bloom in shorter seasons. Our rose bushes bud and bloom all year, and armfuls of long-stemmed blossoms can be bought and enjoyed any day in the markets. This is the eternal spring country, remember, not like those places with four seasons and roses to smell during just one of them. Fresh rose scent is a holiday delight in Guatemala, as it is all year.

Sure, evenings can be crisp this month, and lighting your fireplace may be needed to cut the chill. But that brings its own pleasant scents, from the crackling pine or—richer and better—cedar logs, if you have them.
Advent, Christmas, New Year’s, wonderful days and evenings to enjoy, each day a treat for all the senses. But we regret the REVUE has no scratch-and-sniff panels, at least yet. So it’s up to you to seek out those special scents of these holidays, and find pleasure from them daily.

Heliotrope plant (photo by Hubert J. Steed)

Here’s a challenge for November — find the heliotrope. It’s there, around us, hidden among the rainbow of prolific colors in the Guatemalan spectrum, in weavings, on some walls, along the roadways. I said heliotrope, mind you, not fuchsia, indigo, lilac, mauve, periwinkle, or any of those other shades of violet that are also to be found in the Highlands.

Heliotrope, as in the pink-purple-vivid lavender flower native to all Central and North America except far into Canada. Heliotrope, as in the pretty wildflower or potted plant with the sweet scent of vanilla or cherry pie. Heliotrope, as one more color to be sure you have on your palette should you plan to paint this colorful country.

Several Mayan weavings incorporate the heliotrope shade as a dye for the native cotton. Our friends at the wonderful Ixchel Museum say the Maya weavers use indigo root and pull the naturally coffee-latte-colored cotton out of the dye-pots before the indigo makes it too, well, índigo. See if you can spot the heliotrope shade in dozens of the magnificent weavings at the Ixchel next time you visit, or on the rich brocades of the women’s huipiles from San Antonio Aguas Calientes near La Antigua Guatemala. It’s there, a subtle thread among the reds and yellows and browns and blacks.

In most of North America, the heliotrope plant is a summer-only bloom along roadways or in pots from nurseries. Great-grandmother loved heliotrope in her garden. Then it fell out of fashion, now it’s back again. Never out of fashion in Guatemala, though. Here it blooms year ‘round, anywhere above the hot coastal littoral. The scent is delightful, for us and for cattle that might munch it. That’s not a good idea, though. Heliotrope is a deadly poison to cattle, and it’s a plant pest in fincas. It gives us humans gastric distress too, though not deadly. So find the color, enjoy the sensuous scent, but please eat vanilla flan or cherry pie, and not the sweet-smelling heliotrope.

A sensuous high comes throughout October and into November as colors swirl and sounds swish around the city and countryside. It’s the season for big and small kites, with big and small people on the ground holding on to strings while their creations soar above—or come crashing down to drape trees and wires with pastel colors that may hang limp and pretty for weeks.

Kids of all ages build them, kites representing the souls of the departed soaring on high, and also just good windy-day fun for most of the creators. Smaller kids build kites with sticks, paper and any string they can find, contributing the limp but colorful forms you see draping on city wires or country trees. Bigger kids build huge kites, sometimes two or three times the adults’ heights, with far more elaborate designs using layers of tissue paper pasted into the intricate forms of stained-glass windows and modern geometrics.

Kites are a sensuous delight for the eyes, especially on and around All Saints’ Day when crowds fill villages along barrancos, steep canyons, with breezes up the canyon walls that lift the kites high. Kite-builders start while barely old enough for school or field-work. Kite-builders develop into family competitors and even commercial entrants, entertaining spectators who drive out from the city to enjoy each year’s festivals. Watch out for those beginners, though. The children’s earnest efforts to get their little kites flying sometimes brings danger when the builder runs along the roadways, oblivious to autos or other blocks to their successful launches.

Kites are also a more subtle, sensuous delight to the ears, too. There’s a soft sound as the breeze raises big and small discs, with humming vibrations from the colorful papers, strings and the wooden frames encircling the designs. There’s the occasional thunk of kites out of control, crashing back to Earth. And there’s the ooohs and aaahs of the crowds at the bigger kite festivals, that human sound practiced all year with the fireworks that welcome the New Year, festivals, weddings or any happy time. The murmur of appreciation as those big kites soar is as sensuous as the sights of colors against the deep Guatemalan skies. Listen —and look. It’s a high time for both senses this month.

Free into the wind —Rudy Girón

Free into the wind, your beautiful flag marks a happy month of national celebration just as Guatemala’s national anthem proclaims. Blue and White are the colors of the flag, with fresh flags and blue-and-white bunting on display all over “Guatemala Feliz,” happy Guatemala, as we near mid-month and Independence Day. 

The new flags are indeed a beautifully clear blue and clean white, as are the Guatemalan skies most hours each day. But just as the skies can cloud over quickly with darker clouds, or turn velvet-black quickly when the sun sets with very little twilight time, the national flag’s blue fades and the white softens. Your observant artist’s eye in September should be counting how many blues, and what different whites, can be found around Guatemala this month of independence celebration.

Start counting the blues. Some homemade buntings and flags are dyed a rich indigo, while the store-bought decorations can differ from darker to lighter shades. Then the bright Central American sun does its job in a hurry:  blues fade steadily lighter, until they’re almost gone after a few months of flying time. How many blues can you count? — I came up with at least a dozen shades to mix on your palette, if you’re going to paint in oils the flags over our buildings.

Then come the different whites. Yes, I know; white is the absence of color and all that, and if it’s not pure white it’s not white. But c’mon, the white of the national colors around town can be a light or even a rich cream, an egg white or an antique white, a light grey or even darker shade if the flag has picked up dust or soot. Kids kicking soccer balls add a bit of dust in the air to make a flag nearby turn to a light-brown-white. Diesels add spottier-black-white. There are at least a couple of dozen whites on display around our block this month, from new flags to older ones.

Just like in the Guatemalan sky. September celebrates with cumulus white clouds, or soft strings of white caught around the volcano and streaming out, or dark thunder-clouds building to a storm, or maybe just a couple little lost clouds floating by. Against the different sky-blues, it’s all part of the national decorations, this happy month and all year. Enjoy the beautiful flags of whatever shades, free in the wind, Guatemala Feliz.

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.

Pink sunset over Lake Atitlán (photo: Harris and Goller/viaventure.com)

Pink has a reputation as a wimpy color, sort of weak and watery. You wouldn’t think pink could stand up strong and proud against the deep blues, rich greens, bright yellows and striking reds of the Guatemalan palette. Even by using the fancier French name rosé, pink wine is considered, well, sissy. Pink bows look cute on little girls, but wouldn’t be a grown-up’s color. Pink roses don’t seem to send the same passionate love message of deep-red, long-stemmed beauties.

Pink seems to be improving in its reputation. Pink-and-gray outfits for men are back on European fashion houses’ runways. Rosé wines are gaining new respect. And pink opens almost every day in Guatemala. Get up at sunrise to see for yourself, and to appreciate the light, deeper and elegantly rich pinks of our dawns. No color could be richer than a sky-full of pink at la aurora.

Not that pink has ever been dismissed as wimpy around here. The women of Totonicapán have always woven pink ribbons in their black hair, and they always look strong and confident. Men in several of the villages around Lake Atitlán combine pink and blue without embarrassment in their traditional outfits, mirroring the pink sparkles on the blue waters. Up among the highest peaks of the Cuchumatanes near the Mexican border, the Kanjobal of Salomá wear a long, white tunic with pink, blue, green and gold bands forming collars. Their tunics, similar to those of the Lacondones across into Mexico but enhanced with those color bands, may be the closest dress still around to that of their ancient Maya forebears.

In the famous weaving town of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, pink bands are used to separate the stronger colors in the weavers’ complicated brocades. And in the thick wool blankets produced by the male weavers of Momostenango, little pink animal designs join those in blue and gold. The blanket-weavers learned decades ago to tone down the red achiote dye from little bugs, blending the dye with alcohol to make the pink figures on the natural white wool of their ponchos. The lanolin-heavy blankets make excellent spreads for bedrooms back home, with the pink animal designs marching along the edges.

Pink primroses edge our gardens year-around, and a hearty oleander tree with deep pink blossoms would take over our terraza if we didn’t keep chopping it back. A pink antherium manages to hold its own between our white and deep-red bushes. The pink rose next to our fountain has the most profuse perfume of all our bushes, and pink fuschia drape our patio to tempt visiting hummingbirds. And, of course, there are the pinks themselves— the button-sized blossoms that look like preschool-age carnations. Pinks are bought cheaply by the armload in the markets and last many days in vases around the house in proof that pink is proud to be in Guatemala. Pink is wimpy? No way!

The classic Maya must have really gotten into tweeting, given the number of oval-shaped ocarinas and straight pipes that turn up in the digs. Their descendants continue to tweet, using bird-like twitterers that are demonstrated by kids in lakeside villages, or long flutes offered tourists on city streets. They sound so good when the young salespeople play them to entice your purchase—and never sound quite as good when new tweeterers get back home and try to play. Some guys from Peru have been twittering around our town for a couple of decades now, selling their own version of pipes. You’re much better buying their recordings, though, if you want to share the twitters with your friends. You’d need lots of twitter practice to reach their skills.

Twitters have been sounded around Guatemala even longer than the flutes of the Maya people, however. There are over 1,000 species of twitterers in the country, some natives and some transients. See how many different tweets you can count while you’re here. Some like the grosbeaks sound their snorting “ihk, ihk” tweet year-around; some like the scarlet tanagers excitedly twitter for only a few months while here wintering in the Highlands. Listen to the loud, twangy twerp of the martins, the piercing screech of the owls, the gruff cooing of the pigeons strutting around the squares, and the hoarse, drawn-out whistled scream of hawks high overhead. The transient orioles may have started a dance fad, too, as their twitter sounds like chachacha. The birds love twittering with their friends, and we can share their tweets, too.

A couple of birds around our home have mastered a twittering sound that matches our telephone ring. They must be hanging around laughing as they twitter a ring, and we go dashing to find no one on the line. Probably mockers, who come close to perfection in twittering marimba notes when the band practices next door. Or maybe the macaw on the other side, constantly twittering whether anyone is paying attention or not.

Modern tweeting has really caught on in Guatemala, too. Along the alameda near our home, there can be six, eight, 10 police interns on the same corner, twittering away as they wave traffic along to the next batch of twitters at the next corner. These young Aspirantes have been outfitted with portable twitterers. The aspiring young officers seem to earn points by how often and how loudly they tweet. Most have learned how to twitter continuously, with the briefest of pauses for quick breaths, even as they wave cars toward each other from all four directions at the same time.

Bird tweets, Mayan pipes, police whistles, twittering is all over Guatemala for you to listen and enjoy.

Up in northern latitudes, folks get so excited when the first crocus breaks through the snow or when a scrawny poinsettia plant lasts past the holidays. Our British gardening friends bubble with joy when they spot mayflowers, even if those simple flat blossoms are usually a month or two late. After consulting seed catalogs all winter, Nordics nurse their little seedlings in flats indoors, waiting for the right moment to transplant and then hope for no more frost. Gardeners up there work so hard for a few months of blossoms.

Down in the tropics, folks chop away to thin out greenery that would fetch fancy prices in American or European nurseries. Ferns, bromeliads, philodendron are so abundant they block roads and driveways. Machetes are used with surgical slashes to cut back plants that homeowners in the northlands would pay big money to put in their steam-heated living rooms. Gardeners must hack the stuff out of the way to plant anything else.

Gardening in Guatemala’s western mountains is perfect. Other than occasional watering between showers, the biggest work to gardening is deciding what color combinations to pick and put in a vase. Here in the Highlands, we have it not too cold and not too hot but just right: Flowers all year, roses blooming every month, rich green hillsides, and always the colorful climbers spilling over whitewashed walls. Children up north who might need to search hard for sufficient blossoms to fill a tiny May basket can gather huge armloads in fields here or buy more than they can carry for a few quetzales.

You know the common joke that corn grows so fast in Iowa, or wheat in Kansas, or whatever in California, that all you have to do is drop in a seed and stand back quickly before you get pushed aside. That’s not quite literally true in the Guatemalan Highlands, but it sure comes close. A slip from a friend’s geranium, a begonia cutting, a tiny fuschia sprout, seem to double and double again by the weekend. That baby key lime we planted a year ago is well over our heads already and producing lots of fruit. The nazareno vine with its deep purple flowers topped our wall in a few months and is draping itself nicely in both directions. Pink oleander is yards taller than the neighbor’s walls, giving us a colorful treat.

We work so hard back in colder climates to nurse orchids along. It’s amazing to see the varied orchids that are abundant on so many trees here. We’re proud of our roses back in the north, after pruning them at the right time of year, drip-watering ever so carefully, cutting off the hips just right to get another bloom before it’s too cold. No need to prune the plants that produce rich white roses all year at our doorway, until the bushes grow so much they start snagging sweaters as we enter.   Bird of paradise and papyrus bushes across our driveway are problems too, as they beg to be cut and used for indoor arrangements.

Drive the valley road out of Antigua and see the endless rows of roses being cultivated for export. Sometimes a husband-and-wife team is in charge of a row, competing with their neighbors to nurture the finest long-stemmed beauties that will be sold when they’re perfect in the floral auctions of Holland and Pennsylvania. Because no fuels are needed to heat the greenhouses here, blossoms can compete in price year-around in the world wholesale markets. Potted plants, orchids and carnations are exported also throughout the year, especially orchids timed to be tied into corsages for the northerners’ Mothers’ Day late in May.

We’ve shrimp around all year, too. Not the eating kind, though they sure look like their crustacean cousins. Pink and yellow shrimp, a couple of inches long, cascading from their mother plant climbing up the walls. And there’s the antheriums, from patent-leather-deep-red through pinks to almost pure white, so colorful every month. 

Gardenia’s sweet perfume can be enjoyed any old time. Primrose and zinnia are lush. Calla lilies, aromatic freesia, golden margaritas, deep blue statice arrive for a few months only, rotating with red and white nochebuenas — poinsettias to northerners, blooming for the good nights of the year-end holidays.
 May baskets? May flowers? Nice for those who’ve struggled through cold months without. We are happy to enjoy our flowers every month, thank you.

photos: Smith & Riegel / atitlan.net

Semana Santa (photo: Leonel Mijangos/enantigua.com)

Colorful carpets, thumping bands, pungent odors, rich tastes, thick crowds—through the Lenten season, into Palm Sunday and Semana Santa, Holy Week, all five senses are overwhelmed in every Guatemalan city and village, but nowhere more than in La Antigua Guatemala with its colonial traditions and frequent processions.

Intricate floral designs, forming colorful alfombras, carpets, are most elaborate on Good Friday but delight the eye before every procession throughout this season. Purple robes, and sometimes white, red, black vestments, line the streets and drape penitents carrying saints through the streets, with banners of color on the homes of the faithful. In the markets, great bundles of multihued flowers, of green pine, yellow palm, brown bark, sawdust dyed in many shades, are stacked for sale for the carpets. All these are treats for the sense of sight.

Soft shuffling of hundreds of feet along procession routes. Loud and mournful bands following the statues of the saints. Even louder and incongruous rock from speakers entertaining the carpet-makers through the night, and loud mortars and strings of firecrackers. Horse hooves on the cobblestones as the actors playing Roman soldiers ride to announce the Crucifixion with shouts. Sobs and laughter, moans and cheers, murmurs of prayers from penitents in the processions and cries of laughter from children in the parks. And, of course, the joyful music of marimba, in restaurants and homes. All these are treats to be heard.

Pom, incense of burning pitch, forms thick clouds of smoke to cleanse the procession routes. A sweeter odor comes from the machines spinning cotton candy in the park, the sugary smell blended with charcoal grills with sizzling steaks and sausages. More subtle are smells of the blossoms, of the dust, of the crowds standing or shuffling in the sunshine, of the pine needles trampled underfoot. These and more are treats to be smelled.

The special tastes of traditional foods of the season, salads of beets, of smoked tuna, green olives, pickled eggs, candied fruits. The taste in the mouth of the incense smoke as the processions pass, or of the sweets sold by vendors following those processions. Strong coffee for carpet-builders, and draft beer for the spectators. Tamales and tacos and grilled carnes and fried bananas. There are so many holiday treats to be tasted.

Then there’s touch. Sore shoulders and feet for those carrying the heavy anda platforms with the carved saints. Sore backs for fathers carrying little ones on their shoulders to see it all. Sometimes unpleasant touch of people pressing so close together along the procession routes. Sometimes loving touch as couples and families hold hands as they walk among the marvelous carpets before those exquisite creations are destroyed by the marchers in the processions. Each special touch, each sensuous sight, sound, smell, taste, form unforgettable memories of the season, of Semana Santa in Guatemala.

White flowers (photo: Jon Wilbrecht)

OK, so if you really must bring it up and insist on being scientific, white is officially an absence of color, and our editor wants these “sensuous” comments to be about Guatemala’s rich palette of all the colors in this land of rainbows. So maybe you’ll allow us to think of white as the framing for all our Central American colors, the whitewashed walls being necessary to set off the brick tones of the tiled roofs, needed to accent the bougainvillea reds spilling over their tops, to frame the lovers nestling at the gates. The bone-white facades of the churches serve as mattes for the gray saints in the niches and the worn brown doorways. The white foam of the breaking waves along our beaches frame the deep-blue Caribbean and Pacific waters beyond. White cottages on hillsides dot the greens and browns of the crops and the rich soil around them. Afternoon whitecaps on Lake Atitlán are warnings of rough sailing but are also touches of interest scattered atop the deepest blues of the great lake.

White frames the blue and the old-gold crest in the national flag, white feathers flash on our sea birds along the coasts, white doves nest in the nooks of the white cathedral ruins. White dresses adorn the brides heading to their afternoon weddings, lacy white shawls drape over the black hair of ladies in the markets, where white roses and white lilies stand out among all the floral colors. Out in the green fields, white herons pick at the earth for their meals, then float and swoop and playfully glide in formation to nest at sunset back in their favorite trees, right on time each evening.

Some of the ceremonies of the cofradía brotherhoods burn a special pitch for white smoke, while white robes cover Christian brothers and sisters and drape over the Christ figure in Easter Sunday processions of the Resurrection. White smoke puffs occasionally from the active volcanoes, steam replacing the usual black or red plumes.

And, of course, the full, white moon bathes the land in a special white light, when clouds allow the moonlight to break through and turn patios silvery-white.
And ah, those clouds! Gorgeous, puffy, white clouds, billowing up from the seacoast through the volcano passes some afternoons. Great stretches of feathery white clouds floating overhead. White thunderheads catch the midday sun, before their bottoms turn dark to refresh the earth with brief rains. Ever-changing clouds keep the tourist busy catching them in photos, and painters dabbing gobs of white on their canvases. So who says white’s not a color?

Red Flowers (photo: Smith and Riegel)

Red can be frustrating, such as a red curb at the only parking spot on the block, or a red light stopping your hurry along a boulevard. Red can hurt, especially red from the tropical sun on light-skinned visitors.  Red skies in the morning are supposed to give sailors warning, though Guatemalan storms come whenever they feel like it anyway. Red flames are fine, so long as they stay in a fireplace. But it’s a touch of red that delights the eye in blossoms spilling over white walls, or ripe red tomatoes pyramid-stacked in the market, or red chili pieces in a good salsa, or the flash of a red skirt when the salsa becomes a dance.

Red attracts attention in advertisements or on fire trucks, but also in some traditional weaving of Maya ladies such as the dazzling reds from the town of Patzún, or more subtle deep-red brocades in San Antonio Aguas Calientes. Red dye from the bodies of cochineal insects was used in ancient times and was a major product of the La Antigua area until synthetic dyes arrived over a century ago. Now cochineal is beginning to return as a natural coloring for foods, textiles and cosmetics, just as in the Classic Maya courts.

A few dots of red poppies along green roadsides please the eye more than big red signs for cell-phone service or soft drinks. Nature in Guatemala uses red as a subtle touch, an iridescent flash on a hummingbird hovering to sip nectar, a cardinal’s feathers as the birds cluster up and down the Americas, a streak of red on a trout jumping in the sunlight. Sometimes red isn’t quite as subtle, such as the reds of guacamayas, the scarlet macaws of the jungle, endangered due to relentless capture and display in courtyard cages. More usually, Guatemalan red is restricted to points of color, to coffee berries during their short weeks of being ready for picking, to bright-red shorts on kids kicking a ball on a dirt field, to liturgical red in churches at some seasons.

And of course red is the color of love, red hearts pasted on preschoolers’ Valentines, red boxes of sweets, red lips waiting to brush cheeks of lovers. Thousands of boxes of long-stemmed red roses are shipped from Guatemala each February to the markets of Europe and North America, symbolic tokens for homes and offices. Each rose is a reminder of love, and of the lovely touches of red to be found around Guatemala.

Red and green are the traditional holiday colors around the world, including Guatemala. Here, however, sight is not the only sense involved in the year-end celebrations. Pungent odors and delightful tastes combine with vivid colors and sweet sounds in a multi-sensory holiday mixture. Bells ring with special joy, carolers sing, marimbas play the music of the season throughout the Highlands and down to the beaches along both coasts.

Red, intense holiday red, glows from clusters of poinsettia plants in homes and on the streets, in elegant newly woven blouses worn by proud indigenous ladies and in bougainvillea spilling from gardens over bright white walls. Deep glowing red shines, too, from garlands of chilies, contributing their snap and crackle as they roast on grills and their sharp taste to holiday foods. Red skies at sunset are matched by red flames in fireplaces that also contribute pungent odor from the smoke curling above homes.

Green pine needles scattered on freshly swept red tile floors give a rich odor that can almost be tasted as walkers crush them while shopping and partying. Green hillsides of the Highlands clean and bright as another rainy season closes, gives more of the rich pine smells and earthy odors from green corn fields. Green banana leaves wrap sweet red fruit stuffing in tamales, and green garlands hang on doorways and drape across church altars.

But holidays here aren’t just reds and greens. Gold is in nativity scenes, often woven of straw and gold tones gleam from corncobs on glowing red coals. Browns in the hillsides are mirrored in cups of hot chocolate offered singers visiting doorways during posadas and brown beans of coffee emerge from the red berries beginning to be picked in December.
Yellow flowers in the fields are matched by yellow, cream and golden butters, cakes and cookies on dining tables and by yellow ripened bananas, finger-sized and rich in flavor.

Blue, of course, is not only the color of Guatemala’s flag, but also that of the skies most days of the year, and of the Pacific shores and the Caribbean breakers, with their salty tang and taste. Blue in the deep lakes, reflecting purple peaks of volcanoes, turns purple at dusk, the color of penitents’ robes in holiday processions. Blue is strong all year throughout Central America, yet blue tones seem especially vivid in the bright sunlight of this season. And, of course, there is orange, on a rind of citrus and in a glass of juice; there are grays, in charcoals and in the curling incense; always there are rainbows of colors in the ever-blooming roses and occasionally a rainbow arching across the skies as a brief shower freshens the air in a holiday-time rich for all the senses.