Ice Cream: El Condor II

Another "El Condor" - perhaps it's a franchise?

Not a great photo but I thought the subject overcomes the abysmal lighting. But also: The bottom of the barrel on the ice cream man photos. We have a few more Guatemala photos to come, but they're winding down as the Holla offices prepare for the launch of our new publication, bringing you more than you ever thought you would know about Latvia!

Ice Cream: Don Antonio

Actually in Chiapas, Mexico, not Guatemala. You can tell by the slightly more high-tech ice cream cart.

Ice Cream: Alexander

Not sure if the truck in the background has been repurposed to deliver Coca-Cola or what.

Ice Cream: Chonita

Child labor laws not strictly enforced at La Chonita ice cream cart.

Ice Cream: El Condor

This is another old image, but a favorite. As with the storefronts, it drove the photo editor to demand a more thorough exploration. Anywhere where more than five people gather in Guatemala, someone shows up with an ice cream cart, so there were a few opportunities. So: More of the ubiquitous ice cream guys in the coming days.

I scream, etc.

Retail ice cream sales is perhaps second only to tire repair as a low-capital-requirement startup business in Guatemala.

Storefronts

I think this may be it for the storefronts. I thought I had more. But then I decided that if I start putting up pictures that are just kinda interesting to me, they're probably going to be really kinda marginally only a little interesting to you. So we'll move on next time.

Storefront: Pinchazos

The most ubiquitous business in Guatemala is tire repair.


They're Everywhere

Storefront: Car Wash Hernandez

Storefront: Sintex

I really like this sign. The rest of the storefront wasn't worth the electrons to photograph it, though.

Storefront: Rino Tubos

Very handy to pick up some ice cream along with your tubes.

Also, feel free to check out the Jewish Tortilla Stove Store.

Storefront: Dispensa Familiar

From a Guatemalan supermarket chain. Obviously the star of the show is the hand karate chopping a "Q" for "Quetzal," the national currency. It also suggests you might want to tell your friends how much you save when you shop at Dispensa Familiar.

Guatemalan Storefronts

The photos in this post have been on Flickr for a while, so you maybe have seen them before. The photo department has always liked them, and tried to develop a project on the storefronts in Guatemala. As perhaps mentioned before, some combination of windowless cinder-block construction in need of decoration and marginally literate clients leads to some very colorful and at times endearingly amateurish depictions of the goods available inside. The photo project didn't really go anywhere in a focused way, but we're putting up a few of the more successful attempts here over the next few days. I.e., if you find stuff like the picture below kinda boring (and we can see how some people might), you're in for some boring pictures. Sorry. Next week will be better as we come toward the very last of the mountain of unsorted pictures from Guate, just in the nick of time.

Victory!

So according to State Department records, I now speak Latvian as fluently as I speak Spanish. I kinda doubt that. But, I took the test, I got the score I was hoping for, and I'm cleared to go speak like a Latvian four-year-old to various dignitaries at their Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

P.s. "Kļūt" is Latvian for "to become." It was chosen because it's a fun word to look at, though not to conjugate.