Finally I can put a face to Mother Nature. However, I must first warn you, despite her majestic features she looks terribly uncomfortable.
I’ve found her beneath the tropical waters of the Bahamas, off the western coast of the capital Nassau. It’s here her five-and-a-half-metre frame and 60-tonne weight emerges from the ocean floor. She is the world’s largest underwater sculpture and her figure cuts an imposing silhouette against the vast blue of the ocean.
As I snorkel in the gin-clear waters, my eyes dart to her crooked neck, then to her up-turned hand and finally her hunched shoulders. It’s then that I’m the one who begins to feel uncomfortable, for it looks as though she’s bearing the weight of the ocean on her shoulders. And she is, metaphorically speaking.
Commissioned by the Bahamas Reef Environmental Education Fund, the sculpture, known as Ocean Atlas, was designed by artist and conservationist Jason deCaires Taylor. Modelled on a 13-year-old Bahamian girl, the sculpture’s youthful appearance symbolises the burden we ask future generations to carry. With 40 per cent of the world’s coral reefs already lost, Taylor’s artistic goal is “to promote the regeneration of marine life and use sculpture as a means of conveying hope and awareness of the plight of our oceans”.
Built using wire, pH neutral marine cement and galvanised steel, Ocean Atlas joins a sea of more than 550 of Taylor’s submerged sculptures. All are forever in transition, over time transforming from rock into an artificial reef beckoning and sustaining sea life. Like those works, this sculpture was built to draw mankind away from over-stressed natural reef systems to give them much-needed time to rejuvenate and grow. For me it’s a surreal snorkelling spot with a profound message.
The halcyon days of my youth are locked in a trunk in my memory’s attic, a little like the journals filled with old family photographs stashed at home. As I get older I find myself flipping through those journals more and more, especially as work takes me further away from family for extended periods of time.
I clung to my youth for 30 years, but when cold-hearted Time suddenly and without warning took away my Aunt Linda in the spring, I was faced with the grim realities of adulthood: we grow up, we grow old and we die. My aunt and I were close. She was one of the most supportive and encouraging people I’ve ever known, and liked to crow to her friends that she kick-started my career when, on my seventeenth birthday, she gave me my first film camera.
The last time Linda and I spoke was shortly after Halloween. I was on assignment in South America, deep in the heart of a place wildly foreign to the rest of my family, but my aunt knew her way around a map. “Are you in one of those countries that paint the skulls?” she asked. I told her the big Day of the Dead festivals were held in Mexico and Guatemala. “I’ve heard of the Día de los Muertos,” she said. “Guatemala is the one with the Festival of Giant Kites, which locals use to communicate with the dead. Can you imagine what they’re saying?” At the time I couldn’t, and it took some time to muster the courage to visit Guatemala with my own farewell message.
On 31 October, Antigua’s cobbled streets heave in festive anticipation. Ladies in variegated outfits dress their tostadas in purple cabbage skirts, the canary-coloured church of La Merced proudly sports a garland of freshly cut flowers, while young folks dressed like Miley Cyrus cram into tuk-tuks with fireworks and bottles of Ron Zacapa under their arms. Antigua’s elderly Baroque bones love an old-fashioned shake and rattle, but I’ve come for something more subdued. I cross Plaza Union and pause for a moment to embrace the beauty of the ruins of the Santa Clara Convent and buy a small paper kite from a street vendor, before pushing back through time across the great wooden threshold at Casa Palopo Antigua, an immaculately restored colonial home that only betrays the calendar by displaying dates on the bottles of rum in the bar. I’ve accepted an invitation to a dinner party hosted by chef Mirciny Moliviatis that promises to explore themes of family and tradition.
Chef Moliviatis’s molecular gastronomic genius brings to life the capricious cuisine of her childhood. Her deconstructed sopa de frijol (black bean soup) and whimsical popcorn pork rinds are playful nods to her grandmother’s home cooking, and remind me of the times I used to sneak into the kitchen during the holidays to watch my mum, aunt and grandmother spin their Austrian magic. Adventure comes to the table disguised as fiambre, a traditional Guatemalan salad made using more than 50 ingredients and served as a precursor to the Day of the Dead festivities. I consume the blood sausage and olives with abandon, but high step over the brussels sprouts. Dinner guests go around the long wooden table telling stories of their favourite childhood meal, each of us spending a few moments raising a glass to someone we’ve lost.
Every 1 November, Sumpango, an otherwise sleepy village in the Sacatepéquez district, welcomes more than 10,000 revellers keen on communicating with the dead during the Feria del Barriletes Gigantes, or the Festival of Giant Kite. I’ve made the short trip from Antigua, but as I stare out over the dusty soccer pitch crowded with giant kites, I feel as though my little medium, less than a metre wide, may be an inadequate messenger. Some of the intricately designed tissue-paper giants, adorned with Mayan cosmological icons, stand 20 metres tall and require the strength of a dozen people to heft their creaky bamboo skeletons into the air, where sheer force of spirit keeps them aloft. When these giants do fly, they carry the tidings of the entire town with them. I’m not quite ready to fly my kite, so I wander. I visit half a dozen food stalls, sip on chicha de hora (fermented corn beer), and dress my kite with paper-thin accents before descending into the busy graveyard, where children flit among the headstones in an effort to elevate their own tiny kites.
Jubilation hangs in the air, which is not what I would have expected from a graveyard packed with mourners. This feels like one of the happiest places I’ve ever been, a strange departure from the cemeteries I’ve visited back home. Tombstones and burial mounds have been decorated with fresh flowers and paper ornaments, while entire families picnic in the spaces between. I unfurl my kite and look skyward, but trip over a fresh mound and land on my backside in front of an elderly woman hanging a garland from a wooden cross. I’m terribly embarrassed, but she waves my worries away, takes me by the hand, and tells me of how she’s come to visit her husband on their first year apart. She speaks to him of what he’s missed – the wedding of their youngest son – and the year ahead, and tells me that this isn’t the time or place to mourn. Día de los Muertos is about reconnecting and staying in touch. She tells me to keep that in mind when I finally fly my kite. I thank her for enriching the most moving festival experience of my life.
I’ve drifted further afield in my search for the perfect fly zone, and landed on a volcanic ridge at Lago de Atitlán, a mammoth crater lake where a trio of towering volcanic sentries keep watch over a dozen picturesque Mayan villages. Día de los Muertos is a big deal at Atitlán, and the aftermath is evident – the streets of Panajachel, the main town, are quiet, but bits of tissue paper cling to updrafts overhead. I roll through the village of Santiago, where locals hold fast to ancient Mayan and Tzutujil traditions, the most fascinating of which is the cult of Maximón, a venerated folk saint cared for by the religious brotherhood of the Cofradía. Ages ago, the spry Maximón visited Santiago and bedded all the village wives (at the same time). When the Cofradía returned from the fields they punished Maximón by chopping off his arms and legs, then flipped the script and decided to honour him as an icon. I slip into Maximón’s shrine in time to witness the Cofradía tip the stunted effigy back for a sip of rum, which he chases with a cigarette. I offer Maximón a few quetzales before I leave, bent on dipping my toes in the cleansing waters of the lake. My guide regales me with tales of Atitlán’s guardian serpent and the ruined city of Sambaj, the largest of Atitlán’s archaeological sites, which sits more than 20 metres below the surface. The ruins are more than 2500 years old, yet still people carry the memory of, and communicate with, the departed. I finally feel like I’ve found a place where I’m comfortable bringing up the dead.
I hike some 150 stone steps from the shore to Casa Palopo Atitlán, built into the hills near the village of Santa Catarina. Palopo, with its rustic elegance and charming decor – artist Fernando Botero has his figurative hands all over the walls – is the sort of place my aunt would have wanted to stay forever. I picture her telling me to take a photo of the sweeping panorama while she helps the bartender craft the world’s strongest Irish coffee, before raising her glass to a wild sunset caught on the lips of the volcanic trio. I use my little instant camera to snap a picture of the lake, and fix the print to the wing of my kite. With night falling, I toss the kite into the air and let the wind take hold, hardly slowing the line as it slips through my fingers. Before long the kite is out of sight, carrying what I hope is the first of many messages to a place I’m not quite ready to visit, and a promise to my aunt that she’ll receive a postcard from every stop I make on the road.
This country has it all – a dramatic landscape encompassing beaches, volcanoes and lakes, a rich history and some of Central America’s best eco-friendly adventures. Photographer and Olympus Visionary Chris Eyre-Walker takes a tour.
Pack your bags. You won’t be able to resist this intriguing Caribbean nation once you’ve seen the images from photographer and Olympus Visionary Program member Chris Eyre-Walker.
The sun-soaked Caribbean offers a wealth of destinations, but if you’re looking for an unspoiled gem then Grenada will spoil you. The first thing you’ll notice is the scent of nutmeg drifting from the plantations – it’s no wonder Grenada is also known as the Spice Isle.
Lesser known than its more famous neighbours – Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados – it boasts some of the best beaches in the world, virgin rainforest, mountain hiking with hypnotic views, and snorkelling in crystal clear waters. For something completely different on that front, spend some time exploring the underwater gallery of sculptures at Molinere Bay.
Capital St George’s sits around a picturesque horseshoe-shaped Carenage Harbour. Its narrow streets are perfect for wandering, and there are plenty of places to rest and sample the locally brewed beer, Carib, or a rum punch.
There are two other islands – Carriacou and Petite Martinique – that make up the country. The former is surrounded by shallow reefs, so is great for snorkellers, and it’s also home to most of Grenada’s musical heritage. Carnival here involves soca music, dancing, colourful costumes and a much more unusual tradition: on Fat (Shrove) Tuesday, pairs of masked men roam the island reciting lines from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. To get away from anything, do the short ferry trip to Petite Mart, as the locals call it. Here, people still make a living building boats and fishing. If you’re lucky you might even see the launching of a new boat on one of your leisurely strolls around the island.
Arizona is the land of red rock formations and three-pronged cactus growing from the desert soil. It’s kinda the last place you might think to go on a houseboating holiday. But the azure waters of Lake Powell, on the Colorado River near the border of Utah, offer extraordinary beauty and the chance to get splashing. Here, you can hire one of a number of vessels, from a budget-friendly 46-foot number that sleeps up to eight to a far more luxurious offering. The 75-foot Odyssey houseboat has six staterooms, a hot tub and slide that takes from the deck and plunges you into the lake.
Regardless of whether you skimp or splurge, you can slip through secluded canyons and dramatic Navajo sandstone cliffs, before plunging into the water for a refreshing dip. Add a couple of kayaks to your rental and paddle through still coves and under Rainbow Bridge, the world’s largest natural stone bridge. Fish for fresh bass and catfish to cook on board. Watch the rusty rock blaze during sunset, and stargaze from the deck with a cold craft brew in your hand. It’s a desert holiday you’re unlikely to forget.
If the idea of lush peaks watching over harbours and beaches floats your luxury yacht then a visit to this Caribbean island, part of the Lesser Antilles, might just suit. Sure, you can drop and flop at any of the luxe resorts on its coastline, but there’s so much more to do as well. Zip-line through the forest near Rodney Bay, check out the changing colours of the Diamond Waterfall before taking a soak in the adjacent mineral baths, or hike through the rainforest at the foot of Mount Gimlie to see amazing birds. Of course, there is also action aplenty on the water, from whale watching to kitesurfing and scuba diving.
Don’t miss out on the biggest party of the year, the St Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival, held in the capital Castries every May. But at other times, the town of Soufrière is a better bet for visitors. Located on a crescent bay, its colourful village is backed by the island’s major features, the two huge mountains, know as the Pitons, that erupt from the sea.
“Pain starts here,” says Haitian guide Jean Cyril Pressoir, staring up at the mountaintop from the base of a long road. It’s already been a tough, sweaty, though very enjoyable day of hiking up and down steep rocky roads, but now there’s a slow, daunting climb ahead. All day we’ve been passed by fit, strong women from local villages, carrying great loads on their heads. Now, even their pace slows.
Few people imagine mountains when they think of Haiti. When it comes to the Caribbean, it’s mainly beaches and rum cocktails that come to mind. But, as Jean Cyril tells me, “Haiti is almost all mountains. Of all the Caribbean islands, it’s the most mountainous. Ayiti, the Kreyòl spelling of Haiti, means ‘land of mountains’. It comes from the Tainos, the indigenous Indians, who lived here before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.”
There’s a popular saying in this predominantly black Francophone country, which covers half an island shared with the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic: “Dèyè mòn gen mòn”, meaning “Beyond the mountains, there are mountains.” It can be taken literally, Jean Cyril explains as we make our way to the summit, but it’s also a fitting metaphor for a country with hidden depths and plenty to discover beyond the obvious. Haiti, a country known mainly for its troubled history and the devastating 2010 earthquake, isn’t on many adventure travellers’ radars, but there’s much to find here, from the very hikeable mountains and the national vodou (voodoo) culture to artist communities, traditional music and food. Not to mention sunshine, beaches and rum.
I’d flown into the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and set out immediately with Jean Cyril for the mist-covered hills beyond the sprawling metropolis, heading for La Visite National Park. The four-wheel drive drops us at the hilltop marketplace of Carrefour Badio and we hike up a rolling road into the mountain villages. There’s plenty to take in, with open views of green hills on either side. It’s a Sunday and locals are making their way home from church, the men in suits, girls in best dresses. Women carry heavy loads of mountain-grown carrots and onions down to the market in town. Dogs, pigs, chickens and horses are all part of the flowing traffic. “Hiking is the perfect pace to soak in this country,” Jean Cyril says as the hours pass. “You hear things and smell things you wouldn’t get from travelling in a van.” I have to agree.
After getting the painful hill slog out of the way, we find the evening filled with the sound of crickets and the smell of smoke from kitchen fires. There’s a fiery Caribbean sunset as we make our way through a pine forest to our lodge, Kay Winnie, where there’s lively kompa (traditional Haitian music), local mint tea and a couple of friendly old dogs to welcome us.
We’d set out from Port-au-Prince with the hope of hiking Haiti’s highest mountain, Pic La Selle, but it’s soon clear this isn’t going to happen. It rains heavily through the night, an unseasonable tropical storm, and our plan to ride a motorbike taxi (three men, one bike) for two hours on difficult terrain that’s now a muddy wash-out feels like an accident waiting to happen. Instead, we select nearby Pic Cabaio and, fuelled by Haitian coffee, climb up through the forest.
At the summit, we’re lucky to get a break in the mist for a brief but impressive vista over the island. To our right is the shining blue of Lac Azuéi. “The lake is in Haiti,” Jean Cyril tells me, “but it marks the border with the Dominican Republic. A lot of what we’re seeing from up here, over to the east, is in the Dominican Republic.”
It starts to rain hard again as we make our way down. There’s nothing to do back at the lodge but wait for the storm to blow through with a bottle of good Haitian rum. Sometimes it’s a tough life. The skies clear by morning and we make our way back down the mountain road. We’re rarely alone, with more local women carrying vegetables to market (it seems they do most of the heavy lifting around here). Some seem bemused that anyone would walk these hills for fun, but they’re always friendly, exchanging welcoming ‘bonjous’ (creole for hello).
These women are a good symbol for Haiti, a country that, like them, has had to be tough and resilient, keeping going no matter how difficult or rocky the road. Haiti has had more than its share of hard times. The arrival of Christopher Columbus and the Spanish was catastrophic for the indigenous Indians, who were wiped out. Slaves were then shipped in from Africa to work on the new French sugar plantations. When the black population fought for and won independence (Haiti was the world’s first black republic), they were ostracised and punished internationally, considered a dangerous example to other slave-run economies.
More recently, the country suffered the murderous dictatorship of Papa Doc (François Duvalier) and his feared security forces, the Tonton Macoutes, who were the subject of Graham Greene’s novel The Comedians. Then came the January 2010 earthquake, which killed an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people, led to an outbreak of cholera and worsened poverty in a country that was already the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. It’s not surprising that Haiti doesn’t top travellers’ to-do lists.
Problems are still clear to see, especially the poverty in Port-au-Prince, but Haitians don’t sit around feeling sorry for themselves and the country feels like it’s on the up. “There’s something happening right now where people are starting to rediscover Haiti,” says Jean Cyril as we drive through the lively and colourful capital, with its brightly painted buildings and local tap-tap taxis decorated with evangelical Christian messages and paintings of pop stars. Many of the buildings have been rebuilt since the earthquake, including the destroyed Marché en Fer (Iron Market). This is the place to pick up vodou dolls, metre-long machetes, paintings and, if you’re eating ‘local’, a tubful of turtles or a cat.
From the market, I head to Atis Rezistans, an artist community that takes discarded materials from the street – car parts, bottle tops, shoes – and turns them into strange sculptures heavy with images of sex and death. Human skulls have also been incorporated in the artworks. “When you start to really think about death, you start to really understand life,” says artist Romel Jean-Pierre, explaining the positive meaning behind the imagery. “Knowing about death makes me want to live my life fully every day.”
He pours rum on the ground for the spirits. There’s food on altars left out for them, too. The idea is if you treat the spirits well they will reciprocate.
In another district, Noailles, local artists work with steel recycled from oil drums. Vodou flag maker and priest Jean-Baptiste Jean-Joseph has a studio here, where his meticulously beaded flags sell for up to AU$8000. Vodou is a central part of Haitian culture, brought here from Africa by the slaves. But Haitians are frustrated by Hollywood’s version of ‘voodoo’. “When I see people use vodou for evil, it doesn’t make me happy because that isn’t the purpose of vodou,” Jean-Joseph says, as he shows me around the temple behind his studio, knocking on doors to announce himself to loa (spirits) before entering. “Vodou is good, wise, pure. It helps you go forward. It helps you heal, to work, to prosper.” He pours rum on the ground for the spirits. There’s food on altars left out for them, too. The idea is if you treat the spirits well they will reciprocate.
A short flight takes us to Cap-Haïtien in the north, where Christopher Columbus established a settlement and where much of the French sugar industry was based. I hike up a steep path to the mountaintop fortress La Citadelle Henri Christophe – also known as La Citadelle Laferrière – in the afternoon heat with a group of local students. We end up discussing the merits of Ronaldo and Messi, as you do when you’re at a UNESCO World Heritage site in a region rich with history.
Built between 1804 and 1820 by former slave and revolution leader Henri Christophe, the citadelle is the largest of 22 mountaintop forts, part of a plan by Haiti’s first independence leader, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, to repel the French if they tried to regain control of the country. It has huge symbolic importance in a nation that suffered so much under colonial rule; the forts weren’t designed to guard ports or cities, but “to protect the idea of freedom, to never go back to slavery”, explains Jean Cyril. The defensive hilltop position of the citadelle affords views of green peaks on three sides and, to the north, the town of Cap-Haïtien.
After stopping in – and sampling the goods – at a local rum distillery, I spend a morning walking around Cap-Haïtien – its mellow streets lined with colourful lottery shops, watch menders and men playing dice – before flying south to spend a few days in the arty coastal town of Jacmel and the waterfalls and rock pools of Bassin-Bleu.
Haiti isn’t a country you’d travel to purely for beach time (there are cheaper, easier spots for that), but there are good beaches here. I make my way to Moulin Sur Mer, a resort on the west coast near Montrouis, built on an eighteenth-century sugar plantation. I explore the villages around Montrouis, where trees and the local water pool are decorated with vodou symbols. “Vodou is part of life here,” says local guide Jean-Roger Dorsainvil. We pass the local disco-cum-brothel, then talk our way into a small vodou ‘temple’, where a table in the back room is loaded with maracas, a deck of cards, bottles and other tools used to call the spirits. In another room there is a small coffin, a warning to people who enter without the priest’s permission.
The rest of the day’s spent on a seahawk boat, scuba diving in largely unexplored waters mostly used by fishermen and traditional sailing boats carrying salt up the coast. We drop anchor near La Gônave, the largest island off Haiti’s coast, to a soundtrack of tunes from national kompa star Sweet Micky, now the Haitian President Michel Martelly. “Haiti is a land of extremes,” divemaster Jeff Kirzner says, talking about everything from the president’s career choices to the difference between perceptions of Haiti and the reality of the island’s natural beauty.
During a mellow day of diving, I don’t see any big creatures, like turtles, sharks or mantas, or huge numbers of fish. But it’s fun swimming over landscapes of elephant ear sponges and vase and fan corals, spotting balloonfish, Caribbean stingrays and lionfish. Between dives, we explore the coast, swimming ashore to a white-sand beach, then on to the Iles des Arcadins islands that give this coast (Côte des Arcadins) its name.
I finish my time here with an early morning hike to the village of Kay Piat, halfway up the mountains that rise above the ocean. Paths are busy with villagers carrying loads of breadfruit down to the market. A hillside house has a cross outside, a vodou sign of protection. “In Haiti, when people come into an area and see the signs, they understand what it means,” says Jean-Roger.
For such a short and easy – if hot and sweaty – hike, the views are remarkable, constantly changing with the twists of the road to take in small villages, sugar plantations, palm trees, mountains and the Caribbean ocean. We stop at a local school and orphanage, where friendly kids clamour to greet us. At the end of their lessons, they sing uplifting songs. Jean-Roger and I sit outside in the sun and wait for the van to pick us up and take us back to the coast as the children’s voices ring out across the land of mountains.
The sun was going down over the Florida Straits and turning the sky all the shades of rose and gold you hear about in the brochures. Next to me a Cristal cervesa was slowly warming, thick rivulets of condensation trickling down the bottle. Up here, 13 floors above the Vedado district with spectacular views of the Havana neighbourhood, it was as if life couldn’t get any better. Then I ducked my head.
Almost at the end of a two-month trip that meandered through the southern states of the USA then to Cuba and was soon to head onwards to New York, I’d come to realise that not everyone who travels does so with a book. In fact, many don’t even bring an electronic device loaded up with reading material. Not a newspaper from home, a trashy mag nor a detective novel.
When I get on a plane, step one is getting headphones and a book tucked into the pocket for ease of access. My idea of hell is to be trapped for even an hour without something to read. When I see people board an eight-hour flight on a budget airline with no entertainment system and just sit – not even a foreign newspaper to pass the time – I want to tap them on the shoulder and ask, “Just what are you going to do for the rest of the day?” Because, let’s face it, on a seat that’s not even as wide as your bum, you’re not going to sleep.
That night on the patio at Casa Lily I couldn’t tear myself away from the world of Celia and Marco, the star-crossed lovers of The Night Circus. Having devoured Liane Moriarty’s What Alice Forgot, I’d gone to the communal bookshelf and traded it for an indistinguishable thriller, followed by The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (almost too ashamed to confess I’d never read it) and finally Erin Morgenstern’s magic-realist tale. All in the space of four days.
During the days I walked the streets of Havana, spoke to artists, had lobster lunches in fancy restaurants, drank mojitos in some of Hemingway’s favourite bars, lazed on the patio of Hotel Nacional, rode the hop-on, hop-off bus then walked a little bit further. At the end of the day a little voice inside me would make earnest suggestions: “Perhaps you should find somewhere to take a salsa class.” “Wonder if there are any local bands playing nearby?” “Do you think it would be safe to walk along the Malecón after dark?”
That little voice needed to growl a lot louder, because as excellent as all these ideas appeared to be, I never dragged myself and my book further than a couple of streets away to eat a late dinner at one of the local paladares (little family-run restaurants). Sometimes – OK, most of the time – it’s easier to disappear into a fantasy world than attempt to interact with the real one.
I am well aware that as you read this you will be thinking I’m a complete nerd. That I will not deny. My geek is especially strong while travelling. Notes – yes, I take them; what about it? – are written in black, ruled A5 Moleskines. People find this weird, but as I look up at those matched remnants of trips past – in a perfect line on my bookshelf – I think, Oh, yeah, that’s so hard to understand. They also have pockets at the back, which are like mini historical repositories. I’ve just opened one at random and found some god-awful passport photos from years ago and a ticket from a Rodriguez concert in Nashville.
And although my books can sometimes seem as if they act as a barrier between me and the rest of the world – I’ll even admit to using them as such – they also often start something: a conversation with a stranger in a New Orleans bar who’s also read Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun or someone who’s simply pleased to inherit a just-finished copy of Gone Girl. Because, of course, they’re not something you want to bring home with you. No, there’s just no way you’d ever want to have to buy another bag to hold the books you’ve gathered during daily walks to McNally Jackson in New York’s Lower East Side, or send home a box filled with signed copies of Willie Nelson’s autobiography, books of essays written by Martin Luther King or copies of classics in hardcover you’d never be able to find in Melbourne. Seriously, what kind of weirdo would you have to be to do that?
Within the mountains of Central America lies Guatemala, a country rich in history, culture and natural appeal. This is the birthplace of the Maya civilisation, and despite many of the rainforest cities having been abandoned hundreds of years ago, the Maya still live and thrive in the highlands. Visitors can easily get to the Ixil Triangle in the western highlands to experience this culture for themselves.
Guatemala boasts one of the most beautiful cities in the Americas, Antigua, with its backdrop of volcanoes. Here the colonial architecture is unmissable, and its markets and squares are pulsing with energy. On a day trip from the city, you can hike up the rumbling, lava-oozing Volcan de Papaya, the most active volcano in Central America.
Travel to Tikal, an incredibly well-preserved collection of soaring Maya temples set deep in the rainforest, or spend a few days exploring the villages on the shores of Lago de Atitlán. The lake itself is huge and one of the most spectacular you’ll find. Panajachel is the main town, then take the boats that crisscross the water to other villages.
For adventurous types, this is a country with plenty to offer, from multi-day hikes across the Sierra Las Minas, with its untouched cloud forests, to kayaking on the Caribbean coast. The only thing stopping you will be a lack of time left on the itinerary.
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