Quetzaltenango

Before the Spanish arrived, Xelajú was a city of the Mam Maya that had come under the K'iche' kingdom of Q'umarkaj. Its name means "under ten mountains", after the ranges around the basin. In 1524 Pedro de Alvarado and his allies fought the K'iche' nearby, and tradition places here the death of the K'iche' leader Tecún Umán, now a national hero. The Spanish adopted the Nahuatl name Quetzaltenango, "the walled place of the quetzal bird", which became the city's official name in colonial times.

After independence, rivalry with Guatemala City led to the State of Los Altos, with Quetzaltenango as its capital, from 1838 until Rafael Carrera's army took the city and returned it to Guatemala in 1840. In the 19th century coffee brought prosperity, and Belle Époque buildings rose in the centre. On 24 October 1902 the Santa María volcano erupted, and ash and rock fell on the city an hour later. Rebuilding pushed the city out into new districts, now Zonas 2 and 3, while Italian builders led by the architect Alberto Porta shaped the Pasaje Enríquez, the cathedral and the central park.

In 1930 the Ferrocarril de Los Altos, the only electric railway in Guatemala, opened to the Pacific slope, but mudslides wrecked it and it was demolished in 1933. Since the late 1990s it has boomed again and now contributes more to the national economy than any city except the capital; in 2008 the Central American Parliament named it Central America's capital of culture every 15 September. In March 2022 Indigenous activists began blockading the central waste site near the Palajunoj valley in protest at a city development plan.

Xela is proud of its separate identity. The Spanish name is official, but most people, above all its Indigenous residents, call the city Xela or Xelajú, and some call it, unofficially, the capital of the Maya. In 2014 about 43 per cent of the population was Indigenous, mostly K'iche'. The waltz Luna de Xelajú, written by Paco Pérez in 1944, is sometimes called Guatemala's second national anthem.

The city has long been a place of learning. It has the western campus of the national university and several private universities, and more than 100 language schools and non-profit organisations, many arranging homestays and volunteer work, and some teaching K'iche' as well as Spanish. Students from North America and Europe give the centre an international side, with a busy salsa and bachata scene and jazz at the Municipal Theatre.

Football means Xelajú MC, the Superchivos, the most successful club from outside the capital, and the altitude draws athletes to train here, among them the Olympic medallist Erick Barrondo. Catholic tradition shapes the calendar: the image of the Divine Just Judge leaves the cathedral on Good Friday, and October is the month of the Virgen del Rosario, the city's patron. A local legend also brings visitors to the general cemetery, where those who leave flowers at the tomb of Vanushka, a young Romani woman buried in the 1920s, are said to be reunited with lost loves.

The 2018 census counted about 181,000 people in the municipality, and its metropolitan area, which takes in the surrounding municipalities, has more than 360,000. The city is the economic, educational and cultural hub of the south-western highlands, with universities, schools, malls and the region's main markets, and its first high-rise buildings have appeared on the skyline.

Historically the land around Xela produced wheat, maize, fruit and vegetables and raised livestock, and the nearby town of Almolonga grows vegetables for Guatemalan markets that are in great demand in El Salvador. Trade fills Zona 3, where the La Democracia market spreads over several city blocks, while the historic centre mixes government offices, schools, cafés and the bars and restaurants of the city's night life.

Daily life runs on the microbuses, which cross the city on numbered routes, and on the cold of the mornings and evenings: the high comes around midday and the temperature drops fast after it. The dry season brings months without rain, and the wet season afternoon downpours.

Xela's best-known dish is the pache, a century-old recipe of the city that resembles a tamal but is made with potato dough rather than maize, flattened in shape, which is where its name comes from. Houses that sell them are traditionally marked with a red lantern or light. In Xela the word tamal is kept for the maize-dough kind, and small maize tamalitos accompany many meals in place of tortillas.

The markets show what the surrounding valleys grow. La Democracia sells meat in its covered hall and fruit and vegetables outside, while the central market below the cathedral has food stalls under its craft shops. Comedores serve beans, eggs, fresh cheese and tortillas, and pepián, the stew thickened with toasted seeds, appears at celebrations. Xela also has its own bakeries and sweet breads.

Coffee from local cooperatives and spiced hot chocolate are the drinks of the cold evenings. Nearby Salcajá makes caldo de frutas, a red home-made liquor brewed with hibiscus flowers and native fruits, and rompopo, a yellow drink made with eggs, both sold in the region.