Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of wealth and poverty so evident. Look at a visit to Guatemala City as a glimpse into the
country's culture, history, and politics, and a worthy introduction to a fascinating country
of contrasts with some unexpected surprises around every corner.
Guatemala City is in fact the fourth capital of Guatemala, the other three having been des-
troyed by natural disasters, including earthquakes and mudslides, or having been replaced
by the establishment of Spanish-modeled urban centers, as in the case of the first high-
landcapitalIximché.LikeIximché,thelandnowoccupiedbythemodern-dayurbancenter
was once the site of a Mayan city that exercised considerable influence over trade routes
for obsidian during Classic Mayan times thanks to an alliance with the Central Mexican
powerhouse of Teotihuacán. Kaminaljuyú, as the city was called, was first settled some-
timearound400B.C.TheearlyfoundationalculturesprecedingtheMayancityestablished
agriculture in the valley now occupied by Guatemala City and settled much of it, mostly in
the western part ofthe valley.Aswith the other Classic Mayan sites, Kaminaljuyú was just
a distant memory by the time the Spanish arrived on the scene in the 16th century.
The city's modern settlement dates to 1776, in the aftermath of the 1773 earthquakes
of Santa Marta, which rocked the previous capital, now known as La Antigua Guatemala
(The Old Guatemala, or “La Antigua” for short). Debate over whether or not to rebuild
La Antigua raged on for a few years, but in the end it was decided to start all over again
in the neighboring Valle de la Ermita (Valley of the Hermitage), as the valley was known.
An edict by Governor Martín Mayorga made the move official. It took a while for the new
capital to catch on, as many Antigua residents refused to move despite Spanish decrees or-
dering the settlement of the new city. In 1800, the population of Guatemala City was only
25,000. The new city was laid out in a grid pattern, much like every other town established
bytheSpanish,withtheconstructionofmajorpublicbuildingsincludingtheCatedralMet-
ropolitana (cathedral), Cabildo (Town Hall), and Palacio de los Capitanes Generales. Of
these, only the cathedral remains standing.
InadditiontoresistancefromAntigueños(residentsofAntigua),thecity'sgrowthwould
be stifled by competition from the large highland urban center of Quetzaltenango. Indeed,
it even threatened at one time to secede from Guatemala and become the capital of a new
territory known as “Los Altos.” In the end, however, nature took care of its secession-
ist dreams by dealing the city a massive blow with a 1902 earthquake that left it in ru-
ins. Though it would be reconstructed, many of the city's wealthy elite opted to move to
Guatemala City. The new capital would also experience its own series of destructive earth-
quakes in December 1917, lasting into February of the following year. By this time, it
seems,thepopulationhadcometotermswiththefactthatitscitywasbuiltupononeofthe
world's most active fault lines. The fault line would again create wide-spread havoc with
