Rough Guides Gets It Right :: Guatemala City
The Rough Guide to Guatemala was Jaunted Contributing Editor Claire Duffett's weapon of choice, during her March 2007 jaunt through Guatemala City, Antigua, Lake Atitalan, Tikal, and the cayes of Belize. Sometimes these guide books get it right, and sometimes they are off. In this feature, we will tell you what the guide pros said about a place and then give you our take.
Rough Guides Says:
Guatemala City (or Guate as it's referred to locally) has a distinct flavor. There are rickety urban buses roaring along in thick black clouds of diesel, trawling for ever more passengers. There's the shocking contrast between the glitzy Zona Viva, home to luxury hotels, gourmet restaurants and trendy nightclubs and the poverty-stricken outlying shantytowns.
Our Take:
Everyone warned us of the perils of Guatemala City. Co-workers and friends shared with us friends' of friends' of friends' horror stories, and instructed us to leave the airport and head immediately to Antigua.
When I stepped out of the airport, the smell of leaded fuel stung my nostrils. Freshly washed, white BMW shuttle buses lined the parking lot, waiting for tourists. The city, like any enormous metropolis in a second-world country, has its poverty. Yet there is a surprising mix of wealth. Between crowded outdoor markets and abandoned shacks, symbols of capitalism dot the roads. I spotted at least 10 multistory, high-end car dealerships while driving through Guatemala City. The fast-food chain Pollo Campero is as populous in Guate as Starbucks in Seattle.
The billboard-lined roadways are clean, new, and pothole free. Grass medians with manicured bushes separate the lanes. The city's main infrastructure shames any in the U.S. Our shuttle wove between chicken buses spewing out heavy diesel and young people driving shiny new SUVs on their way home from the office. Driving through Guatemala City felt less foreign to me than I expected. It reminded me slightly of my hometown, Buffalo. A sprawling hodgepodge of an economically-depressed but modern city.
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by ced138
