Great Hotel in Antigua, Guatemala

I found a great hotel in Antigua, Guatemala named Casa Santo Domingo. I've been to a lot of nice hotels in my life, but this one ranks near the top for its integration of history, materials, and local flora. (Yes, it does have fast Internet access in the rooms.)

What does this have to do with my blog? Not much, honestly. It's just a very beautiful hotel that I hope readers can someday visit. These are photos from the hotel grounds.

Comments

[Rob]

Antigua is a great city! I spent 6 months in Antigua after my freshman hear of college and love it. Some of my best memoirs are from that time in Guatemala. I heard this is where Pres Clinton stayed when he visited Guatemala…

[Paul]

Thanks for the loop info Guy!

[Peter]

Ocar Bonilla:
I will be staying at the hotel Santo Domingo this next week of the 25th of April. Would love to meet the owner, since I am also a hotelier. Regards,
Peter Wirth

[mtv200]

Your true cleverness.

[Guy Kawasaki]

Oscar,

I am at the hotel right now, but I am leaving this morning. I'll let you know if I return here. Spectacular place! Please send me an email so I know how to get in touch. Guy@garage.com.

Thanks!

Guy

[Oscar Bonilla]

Glad that you liked it. I'm from Guatemala and was surprised that you posted about my country. When were you there? That hotel is owned by the brother of the rector of the best engineering school in Guatemala. He's one of my best friends.

Next time you go there, let me know and I'll introduce you to him. He's quite a character.

[Guy Kawasaki]

Mark: Yes, the parrots are still in the garden.

Aunt Esther: The rooms are $200 or so per night.

Rob: I have no plans for Costa Rica, but I'll let you know if I ever get there!

Thanks!

Guy

[Mark P]

Great choice Guy! I was at the Casa Santo Domingo a few years ago. Are the huge parrots still flying around the beer garden?

[Aunt Esther]

Thanks guy...was looking for a vacation spot just last night...and voila! Serendipity! Should I conclude the John D. Rockefeller rule that "if you have to ask the room rate you can't afford it?"
Thanks again!

[Rob C.]

If you are ever in Costa Rica, my wife's uncle owns Hotel Grano de Oro. It too is quite nice. Let me know if you are going to be in Costa Rica, I can pull a string or two for you. His restaurant is one of the best in the country.

[Manisha]

It's a browser config issue. I can click through on Firefox and IE on another computer. Sorry!

[Manisha]

Guy, I can't say I am a fan of this looplet even though most folks think it is cool. Generally, I am not one to quickly write-off a new presentation technique and will even use it if it becomes popular and accepted. :-D However, I find it distracting to have the images scroll past me so quickly when I am reading your posts. There are a couple of usability issues (according to me, of course) that I have with this looplet:
- when I hover over it, for some reason I expect the images to stop scrolling and pause at the one I am on
- when I click on the looplet, I expect to be taken to a larger version of the image I clicked on in the looplet.

Both the above are probably due to conditioning and can be unlearned. But the one persistent problem I am having - and I wonder if this is a browser issue - is that I cannot navigate to the underlying link on the looplet. Firefox asks me what I want it to do with the file (Open with... or Save to Disk). And I have no clue either. It's a message box with a dead-end. :-(

[Guy Kawasaki]

Paul,

Here's how I made this loopet:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/04/running_looplet.html

You may notice that the Casa Santo Domingo pictures have a black border around them that the hockey pictures don't.

You can get a black border by doing this:

- Import the pictures into a PowerPoint presentation with a black master slide. I use:

http://www.agentjim.com/MVP/PowerPoint/ppt2004.htm

- One import option is to add a border.

- Once you have them in PowerPoint, then you can set their order, create title pages, and add captions to the photos.

- Then you "save as" JPEG and drag into FilmLoop.

There's only one catch: right now the publicly released version of the Mac version of FilmLoop doesn't enable you to grab the HTML. However, this will be fixed shortly. Until then, if you have access to Windows, anyone can grab the HTML and send it to you.

Thanks,

Guy

[Paul]

The hotel looks awesome! I am not sure if I will ever actually wind up in Guatemala and if I do this hotel will certainly be on my list.

Of course the real reason for this comment is to ask you how you set up your slideshow like that? Is it an obviously widget I missed? Very cool Guy.

[Service Untitled - Doug Hanna]

Very pretty hotel. I've stayed in some nice hotels as well - just can't think of the most beautiful at this time. Probably one in Hawaii - they were quite nice. :)

[Dharmesh Shah]

Coincidentally, my wife has actually stayed at the Santo Domingo for a while during a trip to Guatemala. She really loved it too.

It was strange to see you mention it (of all places).

This is now definitely on my list of places to visit. Good enough for Guy (and my wife), good enough for me.

[Guy Kawasaki]

Smittie,

Be very careful of what you ask for! :-)

Guy

[Smittie]

I love posts like this from you, Guy. I really like getting a glimpse of what's underneath the evangelist, marketing exterior.

Mahalo