Guatemala City


National Palace at Central Park
 
Crest of Guatemala National Cathedral
 




(right)
The Fountain in the center of Central Park

(below)
A Street Scene in Downtown Guatemala City



(left)
Entrance to the Pan American Hotel
 
We went to see the Map-in-Relief in Guatemala City. It is facinating to visit; photographs cannot do it justice. It is "an enormous, three-dimensional, concrete map, built in 1905". The map, which covers 1809 square meters, has a horizontal to vertical scale of 1 to 5, "giving extra emphasis to the country's mountainous features".

(above)
The Pacific Coast of Guatemala (looking northeast, toward Belize)
Quetzaltenango is behind and to the left of the mountain with the brown side, Santa Maria Volcano; Guatemala City is behind the large mountains farthest right; and Honduras is on the far right, where the bottom of the observation tower can be seen.


In case you were wondering, what Mother Nature does when the Pacific Ocean gets dirty is to send out a couple of guys with scrub brushes on broom handles and garden hoses. One of their garden hoses can be seen here, snaking across the coastal plane of southern Guatemala.

(below)
Southern Guatemala (looking west along the principle mountain range)
The red-brown spot to the left of center is Guatemala City; in the black shadow, about the same size as the city, but above and slightly right of it, is Lake Atitlán.