Guatemala was my favorite country.  Where else can you find a Spanish speaking country that has 21 distinct Mayan languages and a relatively large Mayan population!  If that isn't enough, 12 years ago the country finished 36 years of civil war, and has a whole generation of people who know nothing but how to handle weapons.  There are lots of bandidos and even more policia and military units to keep the bandidos under control.  I guess I like it because of the similarity to Venezuela in the early 1960's except there, the weapon of choice was a machine gun, where Guatemala uses sawed-off shotguns.  Guatemala also feels strongly that Belize is occupying Guatemalan territory and should cease to exist as a separate country.  This probably explains why some Guatemalan maps, while showing the geography of Belize, do not indicate the name of the geography!  The similarity to the Wild West portion of the United States history cannot be missed.  Had I not booked the tour with Elderhostel, I might have gone with these dudes...maybe not!

If you enjoy reading statistics, the CIA has a World Factbook page on Guatemala that is reasonably up to date, but conflicts with other information that we received on the trip.  Not that the CIA would get anything wrong!  The U. S. State Dept. has a pretty good page on Guatemala also.

Here are some links to areas that we explored:

Town of Flores and nearby.  Another Flores link with a cool satellite map.

Tikal National Park.  A tremendous amount of information to review our experience.

On to Lake Atitlan and the Hotel Posado de Don Rodrigo--Atitlan.  There are maps and other things of interest on this site.

San Antonio Palopo  Nice summary of this little Mayan town.

Chichicastenango:  Nice YouTube video of the market in full swing.  Almost feels like you are there again. Also mentions the Church of St. Tomas.

Some YouTube videos of Antigua; Antigua Attractions; People of Atigua; Another interesting one.

Museums of Hotel Santo Domingo.  Nice history and review of contents.