Guatemala Rising

Finally, my affair with the country was consummated last year when my wife and I and some Washington friends took the ultimate plunge and bought an actual chunk of the place, a small house on Lake Atitlan. We had eyed For Sale signs in plenty of other beauty spots around the world, but sanity had always asserted itself before any money actually changed hands. In Guatemala, a four-hour flight from Washington, we didn't even resist.

Inevitably, as war has faded from headlines to history and the country has haltingly laid on better roads and passable hotels, Guatemala's formidable assets have begun to assert themselves: a deep indigenous tradition, a landscape of 32 steep volcanoes rising over flowered tropical valleys, a pervasive sense of craftsmanship in everything from a Mayan woman's blouse to the carved frogs of an Antigua doorway. Culture, artistry, orchids -- these are the grace notes that lure travelers to Asia. Guatemala is the Thailand of the Americas.

Ancient Temples, Hip Trends

For decades, most tourists knew little more about Guatemala than the famous ruins at Tikal. Even when war and poverty kept them out of other parts of the country, intrepid travelers flew or drove in from Belize and Mexico for a flash visit to the onetime Mayan capital. The caps of the highest temples rise above the canopy like mountain peaks through a green nimbus of cloud. Within a 200-acre national park, three mighty ziggurats, up to 20 stories high, line a shady campus where warriors once sipped chocolate and plotted empire. Howler monkeys provide a basso evening chorus for the tourists who climb to the top of the Lost World pyramid to watch the abrupt tropical sunset (take a flashlight for the walk out).

Hundreds of day-tripping tourists arrive every day on flights from Guatemala City, where several companies offer one-, two- and three-day packages. But stay at least a night, if for no other reason than to snag both sunset and sunrise time amid the Mayan skyscrapers. The lodging options used to be limited to a few modest tourist hotels outside the ruins' entrance, or a few others in Flores, 90 minutes away by the one good highway. But the hotel choices have gotten more numerous and upscale in recent years. Coppola's eco-lodge, La Lancha, is the most notable recent entry. Near Flores on the shores of Lake Peten Itza, it's one of three rustic resorts the director has built in Central America (the other two are in Belize).

In fact, Guatemala is fairly packed with memorable hotels, the best being on a boutique scale at bargain prices (for a visitor from the north, anyway). In Antigua, which is the country's New Orleans, Savannah and Santa Fe all in one, creative hoteliers have taken a root stock of 400-year-old homes, convents and monasteries to produce small inns that are both whimsical and elegant. At Panza Verde, a few blocks along the colonial grid from the main plaza, the ceiling of your bathroom may be the soaring brick tower of an old chimney. At the larger Casa Santo Domingo, the huge gardens include a ruined cathedral, now lighted for maximum cocktail-hour atmospherics.

Antigua was Guatemala's capital until the earthquakes got to be too much and the Spanish decamped to Guatemala City after a huge one in 1773. Now, in spite of the many toppled churches and dramatic ruins -- or maybe because of them -- the much-restored mountain city easily qualifies as one of the most picturesque in the hemisphere. A grand volcano, Vulcan Agua, overlooks a roofscape of barrel tile and bell towers. The 12-block historic district is a bit forbidding at first, with lines of pastel walls along the cobbled streets. But behind many a blank face is a fanciful wine bar, Internet cafe or antiques shop making a modern life amid the old bones of yard-wide walls, polished stone floors and 12-foot ceilings. Behind others are the homes of Guatemalans and expatriates (many of them American retirees) who would rather live here than in the noisy capital 40 minutes away. Tourists should follow that lead and base their visits here. The airport is just 40 minutes away, and Antigua is infinitely more interesting, fun and safe than the capital.

Safety concerns in Guatemala are a bit like they were in New York during the 1970s, or in parts of the Washington region right now -- real but remote. Antigua is well patrolled and largely presumed safe from street crime, while there are parts of Guatemala City where prudent people don't go at night. Occasional robberies in the capital and on back roads have led to State Department "advisories" (two steps below the more dire "warnings") urging tourists to be aware of security concerns. But after more than a half-dozen trips to Guatemala in recent years, often with my wife and two young daughters, I've yet to meet a tourist who's met a criminal. Personally, I've never felt threatened, despite ignoring some of the State Department advice. (The closest I've ever come to Central American street crime is Langley Park, Md., two miles from my house.)

Lake Life Goes On

Right now, the only way to reach the tourist zones of Lake Atitlan is by back road, but they are heavily lined with police directing traffic around the road reconstruction. The country's main road, the Pan American Highway, became passable from end to end two weeks after the hurricane, Castillo said. That will make it easier to reach such highland tourist towns as Quetzaltenango (beloved by language students who want to avoid the diversions of Antigua-based schools) and Chichicastanengo (the country's biggest and most popular tourist market).

But the back-door entrance to the lake is a boon for view lovers. The winding, climbing road from Patzun crests the rim of mountains and looks down on a scene that has bewitched people for centuries, from the Mayans who still live in small, isolated villages around the lake to the hippies who made it a must-stop on the Gringo Trail in the 1960s and '70s. The Mayans and the wacky expats are still here, but now the 80-square-mile body of azure water -- lined by three volcanoes so perfectly conical they could have come from a Flintstones set -- is also surrounded by quirky hotels, decent restaurants and a scuba diving outfitter.

"It's a lot different than when I came here," says David Corbert, known around the lake as English David. He's been a bar owner, land buyer and hanger-on in the expat capital of Panajachel since 1976. "It was nothing but onion fields then. I think there were six cars."

After the two-hour drive by van from Antigua, the now busy, hustling town of Panajachel is the starting spot for most visitors to the lake. Its river was turned from a docile stream into a battering ram by the rains of Stan, widening the banks by dozens of yards at the expense of riverside neighborhoods. But the waterfront hive of clubs, travel agencies and cafes was undisturbed. Within days of the flooding, the textile shops lining Calle Santander, the town's Rodeo Drive, were filled with the blankets, hammocks, scarves and belts woven in the surrounding villages. Mayan women in traditional embroidered blouses, or huipiles , walked the street offering the same handmade wares that show up in Adams Morgan and SoHo at many times the local prices.

In the background, lake waters wink their invitation to get even deeper into the slow local vibe. The south side of the lake, where most of the mudslide damage occurred, is accessible by road and lined with the weekend homes of wealthy Guatemalans. That's where Santiago Atitlan, the lake's second-largest city, sits, and where an entire neighborhood was swamped and more than 600 people killed.

But most of the more remote north side is reachable only by the public boats that ply the lake for about a $1.50 a ride (much less if you're a local). A string of small Mayan villages lines this side, each tolerating a slightly different expat scene: Santa Cruz, where painters live among a group of followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh; San Marcos, where New Age seekers have built an appealing collection of massage studios, yoga clinics and vegetarian restaurants; San Pedro, a bigger town with backpacker nightlife and a not-so-secret marijuana trade.

Right now, the street down to Panajachel's public dock features a flood-carved crater the size of a house. In San Marcos, a plaza below the main village was wiped clear by the torrent. And all around the surrounding mountains, the slopes are marbled with the thin white nicks of minor landslides.

But with roads being cleared and tourists already refilling the boats and shopping districts, it's easy to see normalcy on the horizon. The quiet parts -- those remote shores, tiny villages and timeless ruins -- will still be quiet. They always are.

But I wouldn't count on getting a quick table at Frida's for very much longer.

Steve Hendrix will be online Monday at 2 p.m. to discuss this story during the Travel section's regular weekly chat on http://www.washingtonpost.com.