Oliver Thornwhistle on—Araucaria

I feel fortunate that my vocation offers me low-altitude air travel to the four corners of Guatemala. When I’m in a helicopter or small plane, or even at a window on an upper floor of a Zone 10 high rise in Guatemala City, I invariably carry away two impressions: Quauhtlemallan, from the 16th century Nahualt for “land of trees,” is […]

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Oliver Thornwhistle On—Night & Day

There is beauty and mystery in your garden around the clock written by S.C. Johnson Day Time You have a pretty good idea of what is going on in your daytime garden, since every day you can watch the main attractions. They include hummingbirds and butterflies, lured by the modern trend of planting hummingbird and butterfly “friendly” plants and flowers. […]

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Oliver Thornwhistle On—Luciérnagas

Luciérnaga

Here come Guatemala’s Fireflies: It must be May, or is it? written by S.C. Johnson All seafarers know the importance of light, as in lighthouse or beacon. Before GPS, charts showed lights sequences, say one short and two long flashes of lights followed by darkness, and if the navigator spotted the right sequence, he knew where he was. Lighthouses were […]

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Oliver Thornwhistle On Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea Sampler (photo Rudy Girón/AntiguaDailyPhoto.Com)

written by S.C. Johnson Sometime, before my time, I believe it was in the 1930s when minds were preoccupied with the Great Depression, everybody had to have a national or a state flower. Now mostly, nobody even knows what they are. I was at a British pub quiz night recently and our Swedish team member had no idea what the […]

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