Guatemala’s most celebrated Maya site, Tikal, lies in the north of the country at the center of a national park. Highlands to the west of Guatemala City are dominated by dramatic volcanoes, beneath which sit farms growing coffee, strawberries and avocados in the rich soil. From 1543 until 1773, when it was shattered by an earthquake, the country’s capital was Antigua. The city was substantially rebuilt (a number of ornate churches remain in ruins), and today, it is one of the cultural treasures of Latin America. A little more than a two-hour drive west of Antigua, Lake Atitlán is an astonishing bowl of sapphire-blue water backdropped by the volcanoes San Pedro (9,920 feet), Tolimán (10,340 feet) and Atitlán (11,560 feet).

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