GUATEMALA

Guatemala is a rich country because of its Archeology, History, Culture, and its wonderful weather and vegetation. You will quickly find out that Guatemala is a very interesting mixture of present and past with its majestic volcanoes, rivers, lakes, forests, ancestral cities and the mystical Mayan Civilization.

ANTIGUA GUATEMALA

Antigua Guatemala (commonly referred to as just Antigua or La Antigua) is a city in the central mountains of Guatemala famous for its well-preserved Spanish New World Baroque architecture as well as a number of spectacular ruined churches. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Antigua Guatemala serves as the departmental capital of Sacatepéquez Department.

TIKAL

Tikal (or Tik’al, according to the more current orthography) is the largest of the ancient ruined cities of the Maya civilization. It is located in the El Petén Department of Guatemala at 17°13′19″N, 89°37′22″W. Now part of Guatemala's Tikal National Park, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular tourist spot.

The closest large towns are Flores and Santa Elena, about 30 kilometers away.

The ruins lay on lowland rainforest. Conspicuous trees at the Tikal park include gigantic ceiba (Ceiba pentandra) the sacred tree of the Maya; tropical cedar (Cedrela odorata), and mahogany (Swietenia). Regarding the fauna, spider monkeys, toucans, green parrots and leaf-cutting ants can be seen there regularly. Jaguars and coatis are said to roam in the park.

RIO DULCE

Río Dulce ("Sweet River") is a river in Guatemala. It is part of a lake and river system that has become a very popular cruising sailboat destination. It is entered at the town of Livingston. The river meanders for six miles in a spectacular gorge. The sides of the gorge rise up to 300 feet on either side and are covered with teak, mahogany and palms. Wild flowers bloom throughout the foliage and howler monkeys and toucans can be seen. Waterfalls flow over the lip of the gorge after rainfalls.

The river opens into a long narrow lake called El Golfete. To starboard is an island and a large natural anchorage. A few houses and a couple of small businesses are on shore. El Golfete is about 10 miles long and a couple of miles wide. At its farthest end it becomes river again for a couple of miles. It is this area that several marinas and resorts are to be found.

As the river is about to enter Lake Izabal it is spanned by one of the biggest bridges in Central America. On one side of the bridge is the town of Fronteras, the local center of commerce for the area. On the other side is Rellenos. Fronteras is where the local veggie market is and Indians come in from the countryside in dugout canoes. Most of these boats are powered with Japanese outboard motors but many come to market day paddling these “cayucos” by hand.

LAKE ATITLAN

Lago de Atitlán (Lake Atitlán) is a large lake in the Guatemalan Highlands. At 320 meters deep, it is the deepest lake in Central America. It is surrounded by volcanoes and towns and villages of the Maya people.

The lake is volcanic in origin, filling an enormous caldera formed in an eruption 84,000 years ago. It is renowned as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and Aldous Huxley famously wrote of it: "Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing."

The forests surrounding the lake are an important habitat of the Guatemalan national bird, the Resplendent Quetzal. The lake surroundings also support extensive plantations, with communities harvesting coffee, rubber, sugar cane, macadamia, tea, bananas and lumber.

The region first saw volcanic activity about 11 million years ago, and since then has seen four separate episodes of volcanic growth and caldera collapse, the most recent of which began about 1.8 million years ago and culminated in the formation of the present caldera. The lake now fills a large part of the caldera, reaching depths of up to 600 metres.

The caldera-forming eruption is known as Los Chocoyos eruption, and ejected up to 300 km³ of tephra. The enormous eruption dispersed ash over an area of some 6 million km²: it has been detected from Florida to Ecuador, and can be used as a stratigraphic marker in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. A chocoyo is a type of bird which is often found nesting in the relatively soft ash layer.

Since the end of Los Chocoyos, continuing volcanism has built three volcanoes in the caldera. Volcán Atitlán lies on the northern rim of the caldera, while Volcán San Pedro and Volcán Tolimán lie within the caldera. San Pedro is the oldest of the three and seems to have stopped erupting about 40,000 years ago. Tolimán began growing after San Pedro stopped erupting, and probably remains active, although it has not erupted in historic times. Atitlán has grown almost entirely in the last 10,000 years, and remains active, with its most recent eruption having occurred in 1853.

On February 4, 1976 a massive earthquake (magnitude 7.5) struck Guatemala killing more than 26,000 people. The earthquake fractured the lake bed causing subsurface drainage from the lake, allowing the water level to drop two meters within one month.

GUATEMALA CITY

Guatemala City (in full, La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción; locally known as Guatemala or Guate) is the capital and largest city of the nation of Guatemala. It is also the largest city in Central America.

Population estimates for Guatemala City is 2,541,581. The city is located at 14°38′N 90°33′W, in a mountain valley in the south central part of the country.

HISTORY

Within the confines of modern Guatemala City is the ancient Maya city of Kaminaljuyu. Kaminaljuyu dates back some 2,000 years and is one of America's greatest archaelogical sites dating from this period. The center of Kaminaljuyu was located a short distance from the older part of Guatemala City. However, in the late 20th century, the city grew around the ruins, and in some cases over some of the outlying ruins before they were protected. Many of several hundred temple mounds have been built over with freeways, shopping centers, commerce, luxury hotels and residential areas. The central ceremonial center of Kaminaljuyu was protected by the Guatemalan government and is now a park within the city.
In Spanish colonial times, Guatemala City was a small town. It had a monastery called 'El Carmen', founded in 1620. The capital of Spanish colonial Central America was moved here after an earthquake destroyed the old capital (Antigua Guatemala) in 1775, and resulted in a great expansion of the city.

Guatemala City is the economic, governmental, and cultural capital of the Republic, and functions as the main port of entry into the country with the country's largest international airport, La Aurora. In addition to a wide variety of restaurants, hotels and shops, the city has a wide variety of art galleries and museums (including some fine collections of Pre-Columbian art) and continually offers more and more cultural activities. There are 10 universities, Universidad Mariano Gálvez, Universidad Panamericana, Universidad Mesoamericana, Universidad Rafael Landivar, Universidad Francisco Marroquin, Universidad del Valle, Universidad del Istmo, Universidad Galileo, Universidad Rural and Universidad de San Carlos, the third oldest university in the New World.

Guatemala City is served by La Aurora International Airport.

Among the most popular areas for Pop Culture and Shopping as well as entertainment we find Majadas, 4º Norte and Pradera Concepción (the largest mall in Central America).