Month: October 2007

Amoebas

If you travel much in areas where the water is questionable, no matter how careful you are sooner or later you’re likely to pick up a case of…

The Yucatan as a garden

It might seem an obvious point, but a 2004 report by Anabel Ford, a UCSB anthropologist wroking at the site of El Pilar, confirmed that Yucatan’s ecosystem “bears…

Unusual Guatemalan embroidery

Luis Figueroa, a columnist for Prensa Libre, maintains a blog called by the same name as his column, “Carpe Diem.” His most recent post included this image of…

Inventory of a Dawn

Here’s a poem by the Guatemalan poet Luis de Lión, who was disappeared during the war. (Please tell me if I have mistranslated anything.) Inventory of a dawn…

Montezuma Natural Wildlife Refuge

Okay, this post has only the most remote possible connection to Mesoamerica. But I just came back from a trip to the Finger Lakes region of New York,…

What is this?

I took this photo of this colorful creature at the Maya site of Ek Balam in the northern Yucatan.

Maya hot chocolate

A site called It’s Crazy Delicious has posted a recipe for what they call “Mayan Hot Chocolate.” Well, why not? I’m not exactly what’s Maya about it —…

Sites we like: La Casa Azteca

Casa Azteca is another of my favorite Mesoamerica-related sites. It is quite a thorough and up-to-date source of news and commentary, especially on archeaological subjects. As a bonus,…

Sites we like: La Antigua Daily Photo

You can hardly go wrong with Antigua, but Rudy Girón goes the extra mile. Every day he posts a new photo from the city, along with some pretty…

Is development out of control on the Mexican Riviera?

Last time I was down there, in February, I got stuck in some heavy-duty traffic jams. Traffic jams in the Yucatan? Development along the coast is going full…

Tikal admission hike

Admission to Tikal for foreigners will rise to about US $20. I don’t think this will trouble many people unduly. >> POSTING WILL BE LIGHT for a while…

Maximon

According to luisfi61.blogspot.com, this is a fellow named Andy ( a professor of law and economics) sitting in front of his Maximon altar. As the blog succinctly notes,…

Huitlacoche

Huitlacoche, or cuitlacoche, is a unique ingredient of Mexican cuisine. Its English name is “corn smut,” which helps to explain why it has never quite caught on north…

San Jose El Viejo, Antigua, Guatemala

This magnificent ruin is San Jose El Viejo in Antiguaga, Guatemala. In some ways it is the quintessence of the baroque, rather Moorish impulse in Antigua architecture.

Love birds

So colorful! It’s not hard to see why the ancient Maya attached such importance to the macaw.

White-Tailed Deer release in Guatemala

Endangered white tailed deer were recently released in Guatemala. (I haven’t been able to find details about the release — if anyone knows more, please leave a comment.)…

Dichos

Dichos are Spanish popular sayings. Unlike proverbios, which are more extended thoughts, dichos can be either brief phases or longer refranes. When I was running Mercury House I…

The ruins of Santa Teresa, La Antigua, Guatemala

In 1677 three nuns arrived in Antigua from Peru. They had been sent to establish a Carmelite convent in the then Guatemalan capital. A few years later, building…

Mudejar architecture in La Antigua, Guatemala

Antigua’s distinctive architecture is not all in a single style, yet a certain spirit seems somehow common to each of the examples. Elaborate facades such as that of…

Robert Hansen’s Yucatan photography

While we’re on the subject of Yucatan art, let’s check out some black and white photography. Robert Hansen, who has been photographing the Yucatan for the past eight…

Samuel Barrera

Yucatan Living has a nice article on the Merida-based painter Samuel Barrera. Trained in law, Barrera developed a passion for painting while designing and creating theater sets. After…