Guatemala guide
Maya Country
As soon as you set foot on Guatemalan soil, you'll sense the weight of the country's history, forged by turmoil and strife. Against the forces of nature: many of the 33 volcanoes of the Sierra Madre are still active. And against the forces of mankind. The remnants of the mighty Maya civilization were far outmatched by the firearms, shields and horses of the Spanish conquistadors.Long before the conquistadors arrived, the Maya civilization had fizzled away, the splendid cities and temples obliterated by a thick carpet of jungle. Not so the Maya themselves. Between 1524 and 1650, six out of seven of the Indian population were wiped out by fighting and disease. The survivors were reduced to slavery on lands conceded to the settlers. But the Indians maintained their own cultural identity. You'll recognize the same profiles in the cities and villages as on the ancient masks and carvings of Tikal and Quirigua. The main food crop is still corn, the basis of Maya society and believed to be the origin of life.
Stretching from the Pacific to the Caribbean, Guatemala is the most densely populated country of Central America, with 11 million inhabitants, and the only one with a majority of Indians: 90 per cent to the 10 per cent ladinos (of mixed ancestry). Devoutly religious, their Catholicism is but a thin veil cast over ancestral beliefs, profound mysticism and sacred rites. Before a wedding, the bride will sacrifice a chicken, spilling its blood over the church steps. The brilliance of their costumes rivals the plumage of the quetzal, the sacred bird of the Maya, whose name has been used for the national currency. Emerald green with a flash of white, the quetzal is said to have acquired his scarlet waistcoat when Tecun Uman, leader of the Quiche Indians, was killed in a duel by Alvarado. The bird lay on his breast and was forever stained with the blood of his wound.
If the Indians were no match for the conquistadors, the land itself rebelled with all its might. The Agua volcano made short work of the first colonial capital, engulfing it in a blanket of lava. The second, built a short distance away, was destroyed by earthquake and flooding. Another city (now called Antigua), set in the Panchoy Valley in 1543, survived more than two centuries. Razed by earthquake in 1773, it was left in ruins, its treasures salvaged and carried 45 km (28 miles) to the site of today's capital, Nueva Guatemala de la Asuncion, better known as Ciudad de Guatemala. In its Jubilee year, 1976, earthquake struck yet again.Strangely, the most seductive images of this country relate to its devastation: the glorious ruins of Antigua; the lost cities of the Maya; the smoking volcanoes mirrored in Lake Atitlan, a mantle of mist around their shoulders; the fierce pride of its resigned, resilient people.
