Flying Seat

Break the sound barrier without ever leaving your office with the F-4 Ejection Seat. This low riding F-4 chair has a custom fabricated aluminum base that is powder coated wrinkle black, with double wheel casters. The authentic F-4 bucket seat has been left in original condition to reflect this Vietnam era bird.
See more at: www.motoart.com

Walking in The Clouds, Part 1

Finca Florencia is a coffee farm winner in the top 23 Cup of Excellence 2009 contest. We visited the plantation since Arturo -the owner of the company where I roast my P11 coffee- bought that winning lot. Finca Florencia is very near from Guatemala City (20 miles East) and is nestled above 4,500 feet overlooking Lake Amatitlán, this farm has been in the coffee business for six generations and the first coffee plant was planted in the early 1,800s. The entire coffee plantation is shade grown as almost every farm in Guatemala, thus you also watch a lot of birds over this place.

Sometimes Less is More

The music of Bosé has had strong influence in many of today's musicians. Here a couple of samples: No Hay ni un Corazón que Valga la Pena and Duende.

Objetos Extremos at Foto30 2006

A little bit of fiction perhaps make people think more about how dangerous are hand guns.

San Gregorio Spa

This Spa is a spot one don't want to miss when visiting Guatemala. Nestled at 5,400 feet over sea level with an all year round blessed climate, in a region near Lake Amatitlán and Fraijanes, both places where coffee farms that produce outsanding coffee are situated. Definitively a place where you would like to relax.
View more at San Gregorio Spa

Coming Around Again

Every time I close a circle of certain activities they come alive again, with new points of view, new ways to enjoy them and sometimes I feel how progress is getting. Stay away days, weeks or months of the tasks I love to do keep me positive and eager to initiate a new round. Recently I acquired some outstanding coffees again from Juan Diego's farm and from the region of Antigua. My team gathered again and we spent some quality hours designing a new flavor blend to introduce soon in Café P11 for the next season (by the way I choose how long the Café P11's flavor season will be). Design coffee blends is one of the things I love the most, because it takes me apart from art or visual design that are the tasks I do more often. Here I post some snapshots of the process. If you have questions I will try my best to answer them.

Have You Noticed?

Violence is inherent to the human race, the fact is how we transfom it into creativity power instead of destruction. Watercolor by Moisés Barrios.

Lejos de Tí

This song from the Spanish group Los Mitos take me back to my early youth years when rock music was a privilege only for English spoken musicians.

Both Ways

Coffee connoisseurs from around the world love to sip single origin coffees, people who like the acidic, sweet intense aromatics, clean and rich tart features of the washed shade grown Guatemala's coffee enjoy also the natural or dry processed Kenyas or Javas. But you can taste the best of both worlds if you take some (10%-20%) from Guatemala's P11 and add it to your favorite dark origin, this will give sparkle and complexity to your coffee. So next time you grind some beans, do the trick and your senses will feel the difference. Sole or blended Café P11 is an excellent choice.

Lake Coatepeque (Inner Rim)

Due to Central America Independence holidays we went to Lake Coatepeque in El Salvador to spend some nice time at the house of my brother in law. Tuesday morning we took our bikes and went to a ride around the lake, the trip took around three hours, 23.5 km, one hard fall and a flat tire (both courtesy by my in law), but the beautiful vistas paid for all. Photo numbers are from top to bottom. See also Lake Coatepeque Outer Rim

New Sound

Since I bought this old piano a year ago I had to spent some $ on it, and some more bucks to brought it up four stories to my office. Now with a second tune up the sound it delivers is beautiful and mellow, that encourages me to practice more often. Music by Yes.

Holding Guatemala's Spirit

At Café P11 we do our best to encapsulate in every can all the cultural richness of the Guatemala longstanding coffee tradition, so you can enjoy at its fullest and share with the ones you love.

Winter

This is the name of this song by Patricia Barber. Enjoy with a cup of good Guatemalan coffee and a fine magazine!

ESFOTO 09 (Sin Complejos)

A Central American (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panamá) group exhibition held at Centro Cultural de España de El Salvador, curated by Salvadorean Walter Iraheta. It showed some of the region trends and how the photography movement have drifted away from themes often visited like ethnicity, folklore or political issues. See more at: Sin Complejos

Guatemala City View

This morning take of Guatemala City by Sergio Arzú kept the city in the top 20 best ranking banners at skyscrapercity.com

Let's Talk!

Life is short, comments make life long, post as many comments as you want, at the end I made this blog to exchange comments, so please feel like you were in a Guatemalan coffee shop!

ESFOTO 09 (Daniel Chauche)

September is the month of photography in several Latin American countries. Like Fotoseptiembre in México or Foto 30 in Guatemala, this month El Salvador celebrate ESFOTO 09, one of its largest shows is in honor of the French-American-Guatemalan artist Daniel Chauche, a master who has captured with his camera the people of Guatemala for more than 25 years. These snapshots are from the day before the opening. See more at: La Mirada de Daniel Chauche