Guatemala City & Antigua

Long before the Spanish, the valley of Guatemala City held Kaminaljuyú, a large Maya city that flourished in the Preclassic and Classic periods and traded with distant Teotihuacan; much of it now lies beneath the western part of the capital. In the lowlands of Escuintla, the Cotzumalguapa culture carved great stone sculptures around Santa Lucía Cotzumalguapa. By the 15th century the highlands were divided among Maya kingdoms, and the Kaqchikel ruled from Iximché.

The Kaqchikel first allied with Pedro de Alvarado, and in 1524 the Spanish founded their first capital beside Iximché, but tribute demands soon turned the alliance into a long revolt. The capital moved to Ciudad Vieja, which a mudflow from the Volcán de Agua destroyed in 1541, and then to the Panchoy valley, where Santiago de los Caballeros, now Antigua, governed Central America for more than two centuries. After the Santa Marta earthquakes of 1773 the Crown ordered the capital moved again, to the Valle de la Ermita, where Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción became today's Guatemala City.

The capital grew into the country's centre of power and industry, and was badly damaged by earthquakes in 1917–18 and again in 1976, when the quake hit Chimaltenango especially hard. During the civil war the city saw political assassinations and the burning of the Spanish embassy in 1980, while army operations and massacres struck Maya villages in the highlands. In 2018 an eruption of Fuego sent pyroclastic flows through communities in Escuintla, leaving hundreds dead or missing.

The region mixes Ladino and Maya worlds. Guatemala City and Escuintla are largely Spanish-speaking and Ladino, while Chimaltenango and the villages of Sacatepéquez are Kaqchikel country, where many women still wear huipiles whose patterns identify their town. San Antonio Aguas Calientes, near Antigua, is known for its fine backstrap weaving, and San Juan Comalapa for a school of naive painting that records village life and memory.

Antigua's Holy Week is famous across the Americas: brotherhoods carry huge wooden platforms bearing images of Christ and the Virgin through the streets, over alfombras, carpets of coloured sawdust, flowers and pine needles that families spend the night making and that are trampled within minutes. On 1 November Sumpango and Santiago Sacatepéquez fly barriletes gigantes, giant tissue-paper kites several metres across, at or near their cemeteries to honour the dead.

Antigua is also the resting place of Hermano Pedro de San José de Betancur, a Franciscan tertiary from the Canary Islands who cared for the city's poor and was canonised in 2002; his tomb in the church of San Francisco draws steady pilgrims. San Andrés Itzapa, in Chimaltenango, has a shrine to San Simón, the folk saint also known as Maximón. The marimba, Guatemala's national instrument, plays at fiestas across the region.

Greater Guatemala City, home to roughly three million people across the capital and neighbouring municipalities such as Mixco and Villa Nueva, dominates national life. Its gridded zones divide sharply: the business towers and restaurants of Zona 10 and the regenerated Zona 4 sit a short drive from crowded markets and hillside settlements on the ravines. Traffic is heavy, and many residents spend hours each day commuting.

Antigua, with some 45,000 people in its municipality, lives from tourism, Spanish schools and weddings, as well as the coffee grown on the surrounding slopes, one of the country's named coffee regions. Rising property prices have pushed many local families out of the historic centre into nearby villages such as Jocotenango and Ciudad Vieja. Chimaltenango is a busy market town on the Pan-American Highway, surrounded by farmland producing vegetables.

Escuintla is sugar country, with cane fields and mills across the Pacific plain, and cattle ranches. Puerto Quetzal, on the coast, is Guatemala's main Pacific port. In the lowlands life starts early to beat the heat, while in the highlands the day follows the market and the comedor lunch.

The region's cooking is the national table at its most complete. Pepián, a stew thickened with seeds and made with chicken or beef, is a dish of Kaqchikel and colonial roots, and tamales colorados, red with tomato and achiote and wrapped in plantain leaves, are eaten especially around Christmas. On 1 November families prepare fiambre, a huge cold salad of cured meats, sausages, cheeses and pickled vegetables that can run to dozens of ingredients.

Antigua's coffee is among Guatemala's most prized, grown on volcanic soils at altitude.

Guatemala City has its own street food: shucos, hot dogs piled with guacamole, cabbage and sauces, sold from carts across the capital, and the chicken chain Pollo Campero began in Guatemala in 1971. Gallo, the national beer, is brewed in the capital. On the Pacific coast the food turns to seafood, with fried fish and seafood soups served in beach comedores at Puerto San José and Iztapa.

Antigua is the centrepiece: the Arco de Santa Catalina framing the Volcán de Agua, the façade of La Merced, the ruined cathedral and the convents of Las Capuchinas and Santa Clara, the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales on the Parque Central, and the view over the town from Cerro de la Cruz. Nearby Ciudad Vieja and San Antonio Aguas Calientes make short excursions.

Antigua's volcanoes shape every view. Agua rises to the south, and to the west stand Acatenango and Fuego. The Acatenango hike, a steep overnight climb to camps high on the volcano, rewards walkers with night-time views of Fuego throwing out lava. Pacaya, south of the capital, is a shorter walk over lava fields.

Guatemala City has the Palacio Nacional and the Metropolitan Cathedral on the Plaza de la Constitución, the Mercado Central, and the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, the Popol Vuh museum of Maya art and the Ixchel museum of textiles. The Mapa en Relieve, a giant relief map of the country built in 1905, and the mounds of Kaminaljuyú are further draws. West, the Kaqchikel ruins of Iximché stand near Tecpán.

On the Pacific side, the Cotzumalguapa sculptures lie around Santa Lucía Cotzumalguapa, and black-sand beaches line the coast at Puerto San José and Iztapa.