Guatemala

Mitt i Guatemalas hjärta gömmer sig en oas. Inbäddad i regnskogens djup, långt ifrån civilisation och bekvämligheter. Semuc Champey, den feta vattenparken varje resenär med barnasinnet kvar drömmer om.

The busiest and most built-up lakeside town, Panajachel ('Pana') is the gateway to Lago de Atitlán for most travelers. Strolling the main street, Calle Santander – crammed with travel agencies, handicraft hawkers and rowdy bars, dodging tuk-tuks all the way – you may be forgiven for supposing this paradise lost.

Quetzaltenango is Guatemala's second city. It has a great atmosphere – not too big, not too small, enough foreigners to support a good range of hotels and restaurants, but not so many that it loses its national flavor. The city center has an interesting mix of architectural styles – once the Spanish moved out, the Germans moved in and their architecture gives the zone a somber, even Gothic, feel.

Stretching from the steamy lowland forests of El Petén to the dry tropics of the Río Motagua valley, and from the edge of the Western Highlands to the Caribbean Sea, this is Guatemala's most diverse region.

Depending on who you talk to, Guatemala City (or Guate as it's also known) is either big, dirty, dangerous and utterly forgettable, or big, dirty, dangerous and utterly fascinating. Either way, there's no doubt there's an energy here unlike anywhere else in Guatemala. It's a place where dilapidated buses belch fumes next to BMWs and Hummers, and where skyscrapers drop shadows on shantytowns.

The coastal area around Monterrico is a totally different Guatemala. Life here is steeped with a sultry, tropical flavor, with rustic wooden-slat and thatched-roof architecture and awesome volcanoes that shimmer in the hinterland. It's fast becoming popular with foreigners as a beach break from Antigua or Guatemala City. On weekdays it's relatively quiet, but on weekends and holidays it teems with Guatemalan families.

Once a spot that tourists passed through, Cobán has become a destination in its own right and one of the best in the area (outside Guatemala City) for decent food, a range of hotels and activities. For tourists it remains a great hub for taking in the surrounding natural wonders – such as Semuc Champey – in a series of day trips.

This region is an interesting mix of local villages, often with little Spanish spoken in favor of Indigenous languages, larger cities and some truly top-notch tourist attractions. It can be beastly hot at times, particularly just before the rainy season from February to May. Oddly, this is when some of the sights are best visited, as they are most known for swimming, spelunking, or getting wet and muddy.

Spreading onto a peninsula at the base of the volcano of the same name, San Pedro remains among the most visited of the lakeside villages – due as much to its reasonably priced accommodations and global social scene as to its spectacular setting. It's a backpacker haven – travelers tend to dig in here for a spell, in pursuit of (in no particular order) drinking, fire-twirling, African drumming, Spanish classes, volcano hiking, hot-tub soaking, partying and hammock swinging.

Separated from the highlands by a chain of volcanoes, the flatlands that run down to the Pacific are universally known as La Costa. It's a sultry region – hot and wet or hot and dry, depending on the time of year – with rich volcanic soil good for growing coffee, palm-oil seeds and sugarcane.