Archive for News
Atitlan in WSJ
Posted by: | CommentsThe English writer Aldous Huxley once called Guatemala’s Lake Atitlán, deep in the Mayan highlands and surrounded by three volcanoes, “the most beautiful lake in the world.” Then came Guatemala’s bloody civil war. Thousands died—many on the lake’s shores—and by the war’s end 36 years later in 1996, the visitors were nearly gone.
It’s taken years for Atitlán to rebuild what once made it the talk of travelers. Now the high-altitude lake is emerging as an offbeat destination for luxury tourists—a quiet oasis in a country known mostly for roughing it with a backpack. It also offers something typical posh destinations don’t: the chance to rub elbows with a native culture of the highlands Maya, as much of a draw as the dramatic setting.
On a steep hill overlooking the lake, Casa Palopó, a nine-room hotel in a converted villa above the village of Santa Catarina, offers a peek into where luxury tourism alternatives in Central America might be headed in an effort to grab that kind of traveler. Spacious rooms are painted in deep colors, reminiscent of old Spanish colonial buildings, and the hotel interior is tastefully appointed with antique furniture along with striking artworks by contemporary artists from the region. A stylish restaurant recently served rack of lamb and grilled bass from the lake (the menu changes frequently to the chef’s tastes). Morning coffee comes in French presses on floral china.
Homicide Rate in Guate vs USA
Posted by: | CommentsCarlos Mendoza over at Black Box has posted about the homicide rate in Guatemala compared to some larger US cities. It appears that my observations last year about the relative risk still hold true.
Some Interesting News
Posted by: | CommentsThis guy worked for Berger and my understanding is both the former President and his Prison Chief were popular and widely seen as ‘clean’. Word on the street is, “So he ran a death gang…but the dead were all bad guys, so who cares?”
Mayor 2, Business 0
Posted by: | CommentsThe Mayor had another meeting with restaurant and bar owners in town and here’s the gist of it:
All of the existing licenses to operate a restaurant or bar are null and void. Current businesses can apply for a new license; new licenses will be difficult, if not impossible, to acquire. If the current business is a restaurant and their application for a new license is approved, they will have to close at 10pm. If the primary business is alcohol sales and, this is a big “if”, they are granted a bar license, they will have to close at 12am.
The Mayor’s ‘concession’ to the group was that he had decided not to prohibit alcohol sales altogether, as had once been threatened.
A ‘New Tikal’ Found in Guate
Posted by: | CommentsNo doubt some of you already know, but local photographer and acquaintance of mine Arturo Godoy was part of a team that discovered and is now photographing a perfectly preserved 4th century Mayan temple:
Archaeologists digging in Guatemala’s jungle-covered Peten region have discovered a Mayan royal tomb packed with a hoard of carvings, ceramics and children’s bones.Dating from about 350 to 400 A.D., the unlooted tomb, about 6 feet high, 12 feet long, and 4 feet wide, lay hidden beneath the El Diablo pyramid in the city of El Zotz.
It was unearthed in May, but the finding has only just been made public at a news conference in Guatemala City.
When I heard that the tomb contained not only the body of the King, but of young children who had been sacrificed and placed in the tomb with the King, I very imprudently asked a gathering, awe-struck group of gringos, “So does the sacrifice of those young children qualify as tradition to be honored, glorified and lamented as lost forever or is it more akin to the murders committed by the invading white christian men from Spain?” That went over like a lead balloon…
Mayor 1, Business 0
Posted by: | CommentsRudy has mentioned the ongoing controversy between the Mayor and business owners here in Antigua. Based on my intimate knowledge of several bar/restaurants and the legal proceedings, I think he misstates things-or else I have a flawed understanding-of the situation.
For years the municipality has issued licenses to bars and restaurants that gave them the right to serve food and liquor until a certain time. Many of those licenses authorized sales to 10pm, but some to much later, even 1am. Some of the more successful places in town have operated well past 10pm for years with these licenses. Occasionally the police will show up and hassle them, usually after a neighbor complains about the noise. That is solved predictably with a beer or coupon for later use.
In summary, the Mayor appears to have sided with the old Antiguenos who don’t like the bar scene. Reilly’s selling hundreds of Gallos at 1am with gringos and capitalinos standing around by the arch drinking and smoking is apparently not what they want for the city. Ditto for MonoLoco further south which is often packed and jamming at 2am.
And so after encouraging capital investment into the city by foreigners and Guatemalans alike to serve the demand for food and drinks, and de facto authorizing it through non-enforcement of the official rule for years, the Mayor appears to be ready to enforce it. The problem is not just for those who have 10pm licenses, but for those who have licenses for later, say, 1am. Will the police recognize these licenses or will they all fall under the new 10pm regime?
Of course, the greater problem is the effect on tourism and employment. These bars and restaurants employ hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in Antigua, mostly locals, and the gringo-owned establishments tend to be the larger ones. They are also those that the Mayor really seems to be out to get. And so if he does in fact manage to shut them down at 1opm, some of the businesses will cut back substantially on their staffing and others will close altogether. For some of these businesses the post 10pm sales on Friday and Saturday represent an enormous portion of sales, and therefore, a large percentage of profits.
I have long suspected that the Castillo family (Gallo) or the Botran family (Rum) would intervene rather than see millions of quetzals lost to the political pandering. That may still happen, but for now the power play looks like it’s going to happen. Where will all the tourists go when they realize that the city turns into a ghost town at 10pm on Friday night? Business owners in Panajachel are praying they go there. Will Monterrico become the place to hang out? They’re not likely to go to the capital.
You’re thinking, “Oh, this won’t happen, because the people need the jobs, and the city needs the tourism, and all of the vendors who sell to those businesses will lose out…”, and your thinking is perfectly logical but…I suspect this is about power and control. The old Antiguenos don’t like gringos here. They don’t care that tourism brings people and money here. They don’t care that retirees come and buy houses and invest in businesses and spend in a week what a local family will spend in a year. They don’t like any of that. They want the city to be like it was 20 or 50 years ago; theirs. And they have that right.
If this does go down and is rigidly enforced, I think it will be good to own a business in Pana and maybe, one at the beach, and advertise all the way from the airport out the Central American highway and Carretera 14 that “We’re tourist friendly and open till 2am”.
Stay tuned…
That AZ Immigration Law and Racism
Posted by: | CommentsSeveral of you have written me asking about-or baiting me, as it were-the AZ immigration law and the Federal Court injunction. One person implied I was a racist for supporting the rule of law. (Note: I dislike the same % of brown people as I do black, white or yellow).
Another said, “How can you come here illegally and yet support a law which condemns illegals in the US?” Maybe he knows something about my residency application that I don’t.
Yet another wrote me saying, “How can you claim that people won’t be stopped because of the color of their skin?” Uh, because cops don’t have enough time, resources, or special vision courtesy of their badge to see the color of every driver’s skin, and besides, there are tons of darker-skinned people in AZ, including in law enforcement, who are legal. It’s called ‘probable cause’, and yes, it even applies to Latinos. Come to think of it, there is no probable cause in Guatemala, is there? Oops.
The whole anti-rule of law argument is specious. They want the law they subvert to protect them from everything except personal responsibility. The only people raising the race issue are, as usual, those who want special advantages based on race, viz., “I’m Latino so I should be able to break laws, but blacks from Nigeria or asians from Vietnam should follow the rules”. Here’s a legal analysis of the ruling. My own bet is SCOTUS hears it and upholds the AZ law. But for political purposes, the federal injunction does wonders for the right, with just 100 days to go until the election. I still think the Senate is out of reach for the GOP but the House is definitely in play. Very little will change post-November, but at least they’ll put the brakes on…maybe.
Some People Still Suffering from Agatha
Posted by: | Comments“Three-quarters of the fields are still under water. Maize, plantains, okra and pasture are all lost,” José Asencio told IPS at the village of Santa Ana Mixtán in southern Guatemala, the area worst affected by tropical storm Agatha.
The villagers have been working for food in order to survive. “We’ve been shoring up the banks of the Coyolate and Mascalate rivers, and the mayor has been giving us food rations, although we haven’t received any for the past two weeks because supplies have run out,” he said.
Asencio said that food shortages and unemployment, caused by the extreme weather and the floods, have worsened the plight of the 373 families in the village, which is part of the municipality of Nueva Concepción in the department (province) of Escuintla, in the far south of the country.
The same dramatic situation is seen in Madronales, a village in the coastal municipality of Ocós in the southwestern province of San Marcos. “The fields sown with maize and plantain are flooded; we need food aid,” community leader Amparo Barrios told IPS.
Tropical storm Agatha flooded the crops that are the mainstay of 210 families, and “the little that was spared was destroyed by Atlantic storm Alex,” which hit the country a month later, she complained.
Agatha departed from Guatemala May 30, leaving behind 165 people dead and over 100,000 affected by destruction of their homes, crops or livelihoods. One month later, Alex added two more to the death toll and 2,000 to the number of material victims, according to the National Disaster Reduction Coordination agency (CONRED).
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