Guatemala Articles

Riding With Strangers

Chicken Buses

Former U.S. school buses—sometimes still bright yellow and with the district name stenciled in black on th...

Iximché

It was my good fortune to be invited to a Maya ceremony by my friend and tour guide, Vicente Cuscun. His dau...

Bike Trip in Antigua

My friend Beat Brunschwiler at Maya Bike Tours in Antigua suggested I join a bike tour. He assured me that i...

Rafting the Coyolate

We leave the Guatemala office at 6:30am sharp, and soon are off on the motorway to the coast. On the coastal...

Posada de Santiago, Lake Atitlán

Just before dawn, dozens of angular wooden skiffs embark from the southwestern shoreline at the edge of a vi...

Quetzaltenango

Rápido! Rápido! Vamonos!” the man shouts as he hauls a boy up onto the bus. A tiny, weathered woman in b...

El Mirador

Far below, the forest is unbroken in every direction. Ancient, ruined cities are silhouetted on the horizon....

Proyecto Ecológico Quetzal

There is always the possibility when doing a community stay that participants will see little more than the ...

B'omb'il Pek and Jul Iq'

In the Maya world, caves are understood to be passageways between the world of the living and the underworld...

Todos Santos

The Spanish conquest swept across two continents and countless islands, leaving death, destruction and disea...

Cancuén

It must have been a horrific scene. 1,200 years ago, near the edge of the Pasión River in modern-day Guatem...

Lake Atitlán

Lago de Atitlán is reputed to be the most beautiful lake in the world, and it’s tough to argue. A stunnin...

Volcán Pacaya

It was a small poster on the stone wall at Anna’s Café in Antigua Guatemala that tickled our collective s...

Mariscos

Cicadas hum in the heat of mid-afternoon. Sunlight gilds the waters placidly lapping against the shore. This...

Nebaj and the Ixil Triangle

The mournful voice of a reed horn, the beating of a drum echo down narrow streets, through misty morning mou...

Tikal

Tikal, the mightiest of the Maya cities, had languished in decadence for a century and a half. No new great ...

Panajachel

The hand-lettered sign was poorly copied and pasted to a light post. It read simply “Free Quetzal.” I un...

Antigua

Guatemala, 1541. The two Mayan kingdoms, the K’iche and the Kakchikel, have been defeated by Spanish force...

Quiriguá

A new sun rises over the steaming Guatemalan jungle. In the low, green forest, a mighty king stands tall...