Today, we hired a driver to take us to Lake Atitlan, which given the condition of local roads and traffic, took about three hours to get to Panajachel from our hotel in Guatemala City. Locally referred to as “Pana,” Panajachel is the main hub to catch a boat, public or private, to head to various Maya villages along the lake. Our driver recommended that we take a boat to the Tz’utujil Maya village of San Juan La Laguna, famous for its weaving cooperatives specializing in naturally dyed textiles, art demonstrations and galleries, and abundance of cafes and restaurants. San Juan is on the southwest shores of Lake Atitlan and is known for its bright colors and endless murals everywhere. Lake Atitlan, meaning “between the waters” in the Nahualtl language, is one of the most important national and international tourist attractions in all of Guatemala. It’s also known as the deepest lake in all of Central America (it has a maximum depth of 340 meters (or 1,120 feet), with an average depth of 154 meters (505 feet). The lake basin is volcanic in origin, filling a large cauldron-like hollow that formed after a volcanic eruption about 79,500 years ago. This was likely our very first time seeing and being on a boat going across a volcanic lake!

San Juan La Laguna was really as colorful as our driver said it was. Of all the places we have previously visited, I was reminded most of Guatape, a small town we visited while on a day trip from Medellin, Colombia, in May 2019. Guatape is known as one of the most colorful cities in all of Colombia, if not South America. San Juan felt similar but with far more hand painted and extremely elaborate murals. Here in San Juan, we saw almost life-like paintings of local, tropical birds, various flora and fauna, and scenes of indigenous Maya culture, clothing, and dance. We saw detailed hand-painted depictions of Maya bees and honey, as well as of the entire coffee growing and production process. We did a Maya bee farm tour (I had no idea how small these little guys were — and although they do not sting, they do bite; I have a feeling I got a few bites while there!), had a mini cacao/chocolate tour complete with some tastings, and did some mini hiking around the town. During our uphill walks, we also got to see avocados and mangoes growing everywhere. When we were leaving the honey farm, we stumbled upon some horses, who were taking a break and snacking on some of these avocados!

As a side note, I’ve noticed that avocados are not prepared quite the same way here as they are in Mexico. When we’ve been presented with avocados here, they are usually sliced up to be added into stews and soups, or it is simply mashed with at most, a pinch or two of salt. The avocado fattiness and its pure taste are all that come through — true delicious simplicity. There is not much in the way of spices, onions, or lime juice added. I’ve been adding mashed avocado to my morning tostada at our hotel breakfast buffet (along with some mashed black beans, a little scrambled egg and shredded local cheese), and I’ve noticed that the avocados in Guatemala seem to be sweeter here than back home. This is not to say that I do not like the Mexican avocados, but more that the Guatemalan avocados have a sweeter note as the end taste in my mouth. The majority of the avocados we get in the U.S. are grown in Mexico.

When we arrived at the lake just before 11am, it was so calm and still – a perfect blue skied day with a few clouds floating about. It was quite a different story as we were leaving San Juan to get back on the boat to Panajachel just after 4pm — it was storming, with rain pouring down from the sky seemingly in buckets! It made for a literally bumpy, slightly tumultuous ride along the lake. Our boat guy had to cover the front of the boat with a big clear tarp to prevent the three of us from getting completely drenched. Kaia seemed to revel in the tumult, giggling and shrieking non-stop with every bump, jump, and push.

It would have been fun to spend more time in San Juan to more closely peruse the art, weaving, and intricate bead work, but alas, we only had the day. And then, a long drive back to Guatemala City awaited us.

In school, you learn a lot of abstract concepts. You also learn about ancient civilizations that no longer exist and buildings in far away places that seem, well, very far away. And then, you sit there as a complacent child/teenager and wonder how it pertains to your own young life and existence. But I still remember when I was in my freshman year of high school, and I took Advanced Placement (A.P.) Art History. One of the periods I really enjoyed was learning about the Byzantine Empire and of course, the famous and gorgeous Hagia Sophia, built in AD 537, now still standing in modern day Istanbul, Turkey. At the time, the building was considered particularly impressive because people wrote that it changed the history of architecture forever. It had a large dome and extremely intricate mosaics that were considered a feat at that time in both engineering and artistry. At that time when I learned about the Hagia Sophia, at ages 14-15, I still hadn’t left the country. I didn’t have a passport. I had no idea when I would ever leave the country, and I really wasn’t sure when, if ever, I’d go to Turkey to see this spectacular mosque. So when I finally did make my first trip to Turkey in 2011 when I was 25 years old, I was giddy with glee. When I visited the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, I was just in awe. I walked around feeling like a little child, eyes wide with wonder at all this architectural beauty. I didn’t even care that as a woman, I had to cover my head with a scarf to get in — none of that mattered to me. I felt so lucky, so privileged, to finally see these famous, incredible feats of architecture in real life after learning about them in school years ago. What was once so obscure, so foreign, and so far away, was something that I was literally standing in the middle of. If only all of learning about history could feel like that!

This trip, we’re not seeing any ancient cities or monumental feats of architecture. Unfortunately, Tikal, the ancient Maya “city” still standing in Guatemala, is too far away by car from Guatemala City, where we are based, and would have been more efficient as a flight. But what we have been exposed to is a lot of Maya influenced architecture. From the moment you step out of the Guatemala City airport, you see hints of Maya sculpture and architecture everywhere, even on basic business buildings and banks. Maya glyphs are on random walls that you pass as you walk through the city. If you are in certain small towns, like along Lake Atitlan or even Antigua, when you listen closely, you may even hear people conversing not in Spanish, but in Kaqchikel and Ixil, native Mayan languages.

It’s been said that the Mayans were recognized as the first people to use chocolate. They were the first civilization to cultivate cacao beans and create a frothy drink from them; it was considered a “food of the gods,” a special occasion drink like a fine, aged wine or champagne would be today. Early records of Maya marriages in Guatemala indicate that in some regions, a woman would have to make the cacao and prove that she could make it with the proper froth on top. And chocolate shows up in lots of Guatemalan cooking. It’s mixed with meats and then stuffed in tamales and variations of tamales, it’s used in mole de platano, which is stuffed sweet, fried plantains in a chocolate-based sauce, and it’s also used in various meat stews.

Before planning this trip, I knew very little about Guatemalan cuisine. But given its geography, it makes sense that it would be a bit of a mash-up of Mexican, surrounding Central American (there are lots of tortillas, pupusas, and tamales here!), and ancient Maya cuisine. So far on this trip, we’ve already had a couple of heavily Maya influenced Guatemalan dishes. At our first dinner last night, we had hilachas, which is a shredded beef stew cooked in a tomato and tomatillo based sauce. And for a morning snack at the local mercado earlier today, we enjoyed a bowl of pepian, which is considered the national dish of Guatemala: it’s a rich stew, usually with chicken as its base, made with a mix of red and black chilies, sesame seeds, cilantro, tomatoes, and tomatillos, all individually roasted to build a complex flavor profile and then blended into a thick, deep brown colored stew. We were told that we know it’s a legitimate pepian if the stew comes out with a brown color. Even though there’s technically no chocolate in this stew, when we sat down and enjoyed it at a market stall, accompanied with rice and freshly handmade, thick tortillas (tortillas are not made with a press here the way they typically are in Mexico; they are fully hand formed and patted down!), it tasted like chocolate was there. The flavor was likely coming from the roasted chilies; it reminded me of some of the delicious moles we’ve savored in Mexico and in the Bronx. And at the hotel tonight, we were able to try a small serving of rellenitos de platano, which is a dish of ripe plantains stuffed with black beans, then covered in sugar; it’s supposed to be one of the most popular desserts in Guatemala. It appears that it’s not just East and Southeast Asians who use beans (protein!) in desserts!

The ancient cities of Tikal and Chichen Itza may no longer exist. But their existence still murmurs on through their carvings, artwork, and culinary influences. It’s definitely different than what we are used to eating and what we had previously been exposed to. All of this — from seeing Maya glyphs to thinking about ancient Maya cities to tasting Maya influenced cuisine — it makes me wonder how we can make history education more approachable, more palpable, more relatable, so it doesn’t seem like it’s this far away, unrelated period of time from us today.