Revue Magazine

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Many factors influenced Guatemala’s first building boom
Poet Robert Burns was voted Greatest Scot of All Time in 2009. Burns was born in 1759 in a thatch-roof cottage built by his father and lived there for seven years, a hard life of farming and poverty. He went on to live a fast life of carousing and [...]

Coconut palm…royal palm… date palm…coyol palm…uh, coyol palm?
WordWeb Online calls it a tropical American palm with edible nuts and yielding useful fiber. In some countries of Central America, especially Costa Rica and Honduras, it is known for the sweet liquid that flows inside its trunk and is extracted to drink as a 100 per cent [...]

From school bus, to auction house, to workshop, to workhorse
text & photos by Gwyn Lawrence
For most people, the birthing process starts in the quiet, sterile, environment of a delivery room. For a camioneta, it starts in the noisy chaos of an auction room deep in the United States.
U.S. school buses are typically sold when they [...]

Panajachel is firstly a walking city. If you drive in it, you soon tire of the paucity of two-way streets. And every rocky contour of those streets registers on the pant-seat of every chicken-bus rider. Tuktuks look fun, until you actually ride in one. And much of Pana is not overly bike-friendly. So, unless pogo sticks catch on, feet remain the preferred vehicle.

A rewarding excursion to Guatemala’s first winery to produce wine from locally-grown grapes since colonial times
text and photos by Ira Lewis
Hidden behind a coffee finca on the lower slopes of volcano El Agua is the first winery to produce wine from Guatemalan-grown grapes since colonial times: Chateau DeFay. Jacques and Angie DeFay recently presented their [...]

The making of the mural was inspired by the Popol Vuh. The Popol Vuh is a sacred book of the K’iche’ Maya and narrates the creation of vegetation, animals, the first man made from corn, and, afterwards, the origin of the K’iche’ Maya.

All year he hides under the bed or in the junk piled up in the corner, casting misfortune or worse on helpless mortals. But on Monday, Dec. 7 at 6 p.m. sharp, the devil gets his comeuppance, as he is tossed out of the house along with the trash and set ablaze in the Quema del Diablo (Burning the Devil), a tradition in many Guatemalan towns that literally sparks the beginning of the Christmas season. —Juan Carlos Ordóñez

For centuries, all over the world artistic expressions of the birth of Jesus have touched people of all ages and stages, the right and the poor, the merry and the melancholy, the proud and the profane.

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.

Late November brings us the opportunity to celebrate and observe another round of distinctly Guatemalan festivities, the ferias or town fairs of towns whose patron saints are St. Catherine (Santa Catarina), St. Martin (San Martín) and St. Andrew (San Andrés).

Panajachel unites and digs with defiance
In The Green Felt Jungle, the story is told of a dapper man in pinstripes who rides a Cadillac into Las Vegas one night, seeking the neonized excitement of that gilded city. But he finds little more than a dreary gas station.
“Where is Las Vegas?” he asks the Navajo attendant.
“Right [...]

My partner and I are architectural tourists. We are captivated by old houses and love to view them through a lens of culture and history. We came here to learn how history and domestic life merged to create the houses of this old Spanish colonial city.

El Pilar is a unique, natural habitat located just 3.5 km from La Antigua’s central park. A little-known natural sanctuary is located just outside of La Antigua Guatemala where pools are brimming with fresh, mountain spring water every day and where multi-colored hummingbirds buzz around in sporadic sprints by the dozens.