Boulevard of the Americas — Every Nation's Story
Walk three kilometres of asphalt that hold the entire Western Hemisphere's argument about freedom — from Guatemala's independence obelisk to three slabs of the Berlin Wall, with the liberators, poets, and stolen busts of twelve nations in between.
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Plaza Obelisco — The Independence Obelisk
Tour Stops (13)
Plaza Obelisco — The Independence Obelisk
An eighteen-metre obelisk with an eternal flame, inaugurated in 1935, marking Guatemala's declaration of independence — and the northern anchor of the boulevard.
Monumento a Simón Bolívar — The Liberator
A statue of the man who liberated six South American nations, donated by Venezuela in 1990 — the continental dreamer whose vision of unity died before he did.
Plaza México — Benito Juárez
The first monument to a foreign hero ever erected in Guatemala — a Zapotec orphan who became president of Mexico and whose pedestal reportedly contains soil from his birthplace in Oaxaca.
Plaza El Salvador — The Stolen Priest
Circular granite benches in blue and white mark El Salvador's plaza — where the bust of independence hero José Matías Delgado was stolen, and the ghost of Óscar Romero lingers.
Plaza Honduras — The Man Who Wrote Independence
A bust of José Cecilio del Valle, the Honduran intellectual who physically drafted the Act of Central American Independence — the pen behind the revolution.
Plaza Ecuador — Art Replacing Memory
The original bust of Eugenio Espejo was stolen. In its place: five painted columns by Ecuadorian muralist Pavel Eguez, a new bust of Sucre, and a literary meditation on memory.
Plaza Argentina — The General Who Walked Away
José de San Martín stands on a fifteen-metre column, backed by an Argentine flag rendered in concrete — the liberator who freed three nations, then quietly left.
Plaza Nicaragua — Poetry Without a Face
The only plaza on the boulevard with no bust — three geometric forms honour Rubén Darío, the Nicaraguan poet who reinvented the Spanish language itself.
Plaza Chile — The Irishman's Revolution
A life-sized sculpture of Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme, Chile's founding father — born to an Irish father and a Chilean mother, carrying the motto 'Live with honour or die with glory.'
Plaza Colombia — The Man of Laws
Francisco de Paula Santander — Bolívar's vice-president, education reformer, and the man who chose institutions over glory.
Plaza Central de las Américas — Columbus
The oldest monument on the boulevard — Christopher Columbus with three allegorical figures, originally placed in 1896, relocated here in 1962. The complicated beginning of everything.
Jardín José Martí — Cuba's Poet-Revolutionary
A three-metre sculpture of José Martí on a six-metre pedestal, holding a book with a rose and extending his left arm — designed by Efraín Recinos, Guatemala's greatest artist.
Plaza Berlín — The Wall at the End of the World
Three original concrete fragments of the Berlin Wall stand at the southern end of the boulevard, marking the spot where Pan-American freedom meets Cold War liberation — with volcanoes on the horizon.