Ciudad Vieja

[4] Jorge de Alvarado founded the second capital here for the Captaincy General of Guatemala in 1527; but, according to historian Domingo Juarros, there was already discrepancy on the exact location of the original placement of Ciudad Vieja back in 1818.

[On the other hand, there is a group that says] that the Spaniards found the city on top of King's Sinacam old court, or Guatemala de los Indios, located in the actual Tzacualpa valley.

[3] Either way, the Cabildo decided a permanent location for the city on the edge of the plain at the foot of the south-west slope of the Volcán de Agua; during the following year this new Santiago was declared to be the capital of the province, and began rapidly to rise in importance.

[5] Juarros described that the settlement could not develop because fourteen years after its foundation it was ruined by a "formidable landslide that came down Volcán de Agua on 11 September 1541; the mudslide brought along heavy rocks that destroyed part of the buildings and damaged the rest".

"[9] Guatemalan writer and historian José Milla y Vidaurre wrote his novel La hija del Adelantado using historical elements from the months leading to the destruction of Ciudad Vieja.

Volcán de Agua as seen from Ciudad Vieja in 2007.