If you want adventures, you can get them when travelling to Guatemala. This small country is located next to Mexico, and offers visitors plenty of opportunities to spend the free time on. Here you can either have a look at natural beauty of the country or have a visit to the cultural heritage monuments. The country has many attractions that will definitely not disappoint due to their uniqueness. While in Guatemala, be sure to visit some of its amazing sites.
Lake Atitlan has a depth of more than 1,000 feet and is surrounded by three amazing volcanoes. According to the rumors, the name comes from the Mayan word “Atitlan”, which means a place where the rainbow gets its colors. Lake Atitlan is sometimes referred to be the most beautiful lake in the world, being surrounded by mountain peaks and volcanoes of the three-guard.
Although Antigua Guatemala cannot be called a good place for the natural horizons, its architecture and ruins are unique. This Spanish colonial city is an excellent place for shopping, photos, and large companies. Walking next to the ruins the best way to have a break is to visit the shops of Guatemalan sweets.
Guatemala is the largest urban agglomeration in Central America, but it can hardly be called a beautiful place. It stretches along the ridges, on a plateau surrounded by valleys. With its brisk buses, chaotic markets, it is essentially a typical city in Latin America. Like all of Guatemala cities, Guatemala has a lattice structure: avenidas arranged from north to south, and calles from east to west. This huge city is divided into 15 zones, each with its own system of streets.
Some interesting museums are located in Zone 10, including the Museum of Wuhan Popolo, where there is a collection of Spanish colonial art and the art of the Maya, and Ixchel Museum, which shows traditional painting and suits the highlands of Guatemala. In Zone 13 you will find the National Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, which houses an excellent collection of Mayan artifacts, ancient tissue samples of indigenous peoples of Guatemala, as well as samples of ceramics colonial period and up to the May-cultures. You should also visit the National Museum of Modern Art, where paintings by Guatemalan artists of the 20th century are housed, as well as the market for handicrafts, and the zoo where you can see the local fauna, such as tapir, peccaries, and other animals that inhabit the forests of Guatemala.
A few kilometers from the center are the ruins of Kaminaljuyu, an important center of early classical period of Mayan history. The story of this ruin is not that long, for many years it has been hidden under the other city buildings. And not long ago finally the archaeologists decided to reinvent this place.
At an altitude of 2030 meters above the sea level, is a mysterious and misty highland town of Chichi, surrounded by valleys and shadowed by mountains. Although this city is quite isolated, it is an important market place. Sunday fair, it is difficult to catch because cofradias (religious brotherhoods) often hold a religious procession on this day. Local residents have mixed traditional religious rituals of the Maya and Catholicism, and religious rituals can be seen near the church of St. Thomas and Pascal Abajo Shrine, where the ceremony is carried out of the earth as worship to the god of the Mayas. Spirits of ancestors bring gifts (food, drink, etc.) to ensure the fertility of the land. In the city, the Regional Museum exhibits pottery, figurines, flint, obsidian tips, millstones, and a delightful collection of jade ornaments of the locals, which are believed to have magical effects on the holders.
Although the Pacific beaches of the resort county have white sand, they are incredibly beautiful in any season. Big waves crash into the black, volcanic sand, which makes this place unusually beautiful.
No trip to Guatemala can be called a great one, if you do skip a trip to the volcanoes. There are easier peaks to climb, such as Ipala and Pacaya: the view from the volcanoes is breathtaking. Climbing will take up to 5 hours, but it’s worth it.
