Car Hire Guatemala City - Mini guide to Guatemala City
Guatemala is a country that’s pulled itself together after thirty-odd years of civil war. It’s a tiny Central American county, but boy it packs a punch. Its volcanoes are the highest and most active, its Mayan ruins the most impressive, and the indigenous population are the most colorfully dressed. Guatemala City, though not the prettiest capital city in Central America, does have it’s own charm.
Several important museums can be found in Zona 10, including the Museo Popol Vuh, named after the famous Mayan book, which has a superb private collection of Mayan and Spanish colonial art. Zona 13 houses the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, with its prized collection of Mayan artifacts, and the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, which has a superb collection of 20th-century Guatemalan art. There’s colonial churches worth visiting around the Zocala, the central square, but for the real Guatemala experience, hire a car and get out of the city.
An hour’s drive north-west of Guatemala City is Antigua, probably one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the Americas, and this is no understatement. The genteel cobbled streets and plazas of colonial Antigua gain an extra dimension from their proximity to three looming volcanoes - Agua, Fuego and Acatenango - that encircle the town. Semana Santa (Holy Week - the week before Easter) is Guatemala's biggest festival, and the streets of Antigua are carpeted with elaborate decorations of colored sawdust and flower petals.
An hour’s flight from Guatemala City is the Maya temples of Tikal, set inside the pristine jungle of the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Tikal rivals the Egyptian pyramids in majesty, and is the best preserved in the region.
A must-see is one of the world’s deepest lakes, Lago de Atitlan on the shores of a Panajache, a former hippie town in the ‘60’s , which still attracts laidback travellers. A three-hour drive from the capital, Lago de Atitlan is actually a water-filled collapsed volcanic cone. From here you can take a ferry to Santiago Atitlán for a day trip and witness colorfully dressed locals. Guatemala City has flights to other regional cities and several US cities.
