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Panajachel, Lake Atitlan, San Pedro volcano beyond.
Photographer: Jamie Marshall
Copyright: Jamie Marshall

Situated just forty kilometres apart in Guatemala's highlands, the two cities of Guatemala City and Antigua could hardly be more different. The capital, Guatemala City, is a fume-filled maelstrom of industry and commerce with few attractions to detain the traveller, though a day or two spent visiting the museums and soaking up the (limited) cultural scene won't be wasted. Antigua is everything the capital is not: tranquil, urbane and resplendent with spectacular colonial buildings and myriad cosmopolitan cafés, restaurants and hotels. Not surprisingly, most travellers choose to base themselves here.
Guatemala City sprawls across a huge upland basin, surrounded on three sides by low hills and volcanic cones. The capital was moved here in 1776 after the seismic destruction of Antigua, but the site had been of importance long before the arrival of the Spanish. These days, its shapeless and swelling mass, ringed by shanty towns, ranks as the largest city in Central America, with a metropolitan area that's home to more than three million people; and it's the undisputed centre of politics, power and wealth.
The capital has an intensity and vibrancy that are both its fascination and its horror, and for many visitors dealing with the city is an exercise in damage limitation, as they struggle through a swirling mass of bus fumes and crowds. The centre of the city is run-down and polluted, largely abandoned by the affluent middle classes and blue-chip businesses who long ago fled to the suburbs. But efforts are being made by a small group of conservationists to preserve what's left of the centro histórico in Zona 1, and a smattering of new cafés and bars have opened in restored buildings in the heart of the city. Some of the most exciting developments are taking place in the Cuatro Grados Norte area of Zona 4, where an expanding group of hip bars and restaurants represent the city's most interesting scene. These advances have hardly transformed "Guate" into a hotbed of culture, however, and most travellers still choose to spend as little time as possible in the place. Nevertheless the city is the crossroads of the country, and you'll almost certainly end up here at some time, if only to hurry between bus terminals or catch a plane to Petén.
Antigua, on the other hand, is the most impressive colonial city in Central America, and its tremendous wealth of architectural riches has ensured that it has become one of Guatemala's premier tourist attractions. With just 30,000 inhabitants and a small central zone, the city's graceful cobbled streets are ideal to explore on foot. Spanish architects and Maya labourers constructed a classically designed city of elegant squares, churches, monasteries and grand houses, and it's this magnificent historical legacy that ensures Antigua's continuing appeal. The city's renowned language schools also attract students from all over the world, with the education and tourism industries forming the city's prime source of wealth.
The countryside around Antigua and Guatemala City - a delightful landscape of volcanoes, pine forests, meadows, milpas and coffee farms, punctuated with villages - also begs to be explored. Looming over the capital is the Volcán de Pacaya, one of the most active volcanoes in Latin America. It has been spewing sulphurous gas and molten rock regularly for years now, and you can swing through the forest beneath the cone on cables in the Parque Natural Canopy Calderas. Close to Antigua the volcanoes of Agua and Acatenango are also well worth climbing, the latter offering a terrific perspective of the active neighbouring cone of Fuego.
There are countless interesting villages to visit in this area, including San Andrés Itzapa, where there is a pagan shrine to the "evil saint" San Simón; Jocotenango, which boasts a pair of museums dedicated to coffee and Maya music; and Santa María de Jesús, a Maya village where the trail to the Volcán de Agua begins. The one Maya ruin in the area that can compete with the lowland sites further north is Mixco Viejo; it's tricky to get to unless you have your own transport, but its setting, in splendid isolation, is tremendous. Little evidence remains of the ancient capital of Kaminaljuyú, today almost buried in the capital's suburbs, but this was once one of the largest and most important cities of the Maya World.

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