Early in the 20th century an English visitor labeled Guatemala "the Land of Eternal Spring." Not surprisingly, the name stuck. For while many foreigners note the latitude and perceive of Guatemala as the torrid tropics, much of the country is mountainous and at a high enough altitude to be pine covered and cool year around.

These cool central highlands attract many visitors.  In part, the attraction is the sheer physical beauty of the mountainous heights. Throughout the highlands, steep slopes are covered by hand-tilled corn fields and coffee groves, and majestic stretches of cloud forests with their tall conifers are cut through by deep canyons and jagged volcanic outcroppings.

In the very center of the highlands rests Lago de Atitlán. This deep blue, natural reservoir, which covers many square kilometers, is nestled in a basin formed by the slopes of four conical volcanoes, which are themselves stunning.  Ancient Maya buried the ashes of their dead in this lake, which is often called the most beautiful in the world.

As one travels down through the mountains, the vegetation changes with the elevation and the temperature. At the highest elevations like those in the Cuchumatan Mountains, corn continues to be the primary crop. In other high areas, like the area known as "Alyeska," between Xela and Atitlán, cash crops of golden wheat are still cut by sickle and bundled into sheaves during the Christmas season.  At slightly lower altitudes, beans, fruits, and vegetables have in many places replaced subsistence-assisting corn plots. Yet further down the mountain slopes, coffee groves, shaded by banana or other fruit trees, cover the rolling piedmont. Further down the mountain, the coastal plains are dominated by large scale cattle, sugar and cotton production.

But the beauty and diversity of Guatemala's landscape are exceeded by the  little nation’s fascinating mix of indigenous cultures.  Guatemala's small pueblos are home to some of the most culturally intact, good-natured, and beautifu1 indigenous populations in the world.  While all extant indigenous cultures (except the Black Carib Garifuna on the east coast) are "Maya," los indigenas of Guatemala do not form a uniform group.  Indeed, people of one pueblo often speak a different language than that spoken in another small town just a few kilometers away.

A little girl from a "cantón," or rural hamlet, of Chichicastenango smiles past her popsicle on 15 September, Independence Day, the most important day of the academic year for most schools.

While the untrained ear may well miss linguistic variations, differences in costume are difficult to overlook.  The great majority of rural women, as well as many men in some areas, continue to wear traditional traje, or typical dress, distinctive to only one pueblo.  Each town presents a different style of weaving and/or embroidery, and bright, distinctive colors.  A feast for the intellect as well as the eye, the observant traveler learns to identify the origin of indigenous guatemaltecos in traje no matter where they might be encountered.
Travelers to Guatemala find the country not only friendly, but given some common sense precautions quite safe.  Of course as with all developing nations, Guatemala City has its share of violence and crime.  But even in the City, if basic rules of personal safety are followed, it is unlikely the visitor will be victimized.  Such problems outside Guatemala City, meanwhile, are relatively rare, and the most nervous of visitors is generally reassured very quickly by Guatemala's welcoming ambience and the genuine warmth of Guatemalans.

The spectacular and varied scenery, the warm hospitality, the intriguing ancient history and beautifu1 Maya ruins, and the pageantry of the markets and religious ceremonies that still characterize the country, help to weave an exotic spell that for many visitors make "the Land of Eternal Spring" the most magical and seductive country in all of Latin America.