Travel Journal: Guatemala City, Guatemala
The first part of my Guatemala travel guide plus a brief history and Guatemala books and culture recommendations.
Earlier this year, I spent a week solo traveling in Guatemala and had a delightful time. The country is brimming with culture, natural beauty, and lovely people.
As it was my first visit, my trip included the usual highlights—Guatemala City, Antigua, Lake Atitlán, and hiking Acatenango Volcano. As is generally the case when I travel, I was particularly interested in learning about the country's culture, art, and history.
Over the next few weeks, I will share everything I did and saw in Guatemala and some of my learnings. Maybe it will inspire you for your next trip or, at the very least, teach you something interesting about somewhere else. Although I very much recommend a trip!
Today’s post has a brief history of the country, a few books and culture recommendations, and a travel guide for spending a day in Guatemala City (for paid subscribers). Future posts will focus on the other places I visited.
Enough intro, let’s go!
A Very Brief History
Guatemala's history is rooted in its ancient Mayan civilization, one of the most advanced in pre-Columbian America. The Maya flourished from around 2000 BCE until the Spanish conquest, leaving behind monumental architecture, complex hieroglyphic writing, and significant advances in mathematics and astronomy. In 1524, the Spanish colonized the region, establishing colonial rule that lasted for over three hundred years. After gaining independence in 1821, Guatemala became part of the short-lived Mexican Empire and later became an independent republic in 1839.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Guatemala experienced political instability, with periods of authoritarian rule and liberal reforms. The 1944 "October Revolution" ushered in a brief democratic period marked by social and economic reforms, which ended with the U.S.-backed coup in 1954 that ousted President Jacobo Árbenz. This coup led to a succession of military governments and the outbreak of a 36-year civil war (1960–1996), during which an estimated 200,000 people, primarily indigenous civilians, were killed or disappeared.
The 1996 peace accords ended the conflict, but the country still faces significant challenges related to poverty, inequality, and corruption. Recent efforts have focused on addressing corruption and improving governance, though progress has been slow. Environmental and migration issues also dominate national discussions, as many Guatemalans continue to seek better opportunities abroad, particularly in the United States.
1. Undoubtedly, one of the best books I have ever read, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, is a meticulously researched account of the 1954 U.S.-backed coup that overthrew Guatemala's democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz.
The book explores how Árbenz’s progressive reforms, especially land redistribution policies, threatened U.S. corporate interests, particularly the United Fruit Company, and led to his removal. This was during the Cold War, and so fears of communism were manipulated to justify intervention, with devastating long-term consequences for Guatemala.
I had no idea the extent of U.S. interventionism in Guatemala, and this book explained that history so well. Every chapter made me more outraged and flabbergasted. It was written for a general audience, so it is not too dense and is quite an easy read despite the horrifying subject matter. I can’t recommend this book enough. Please read it.
2. Ixcanul is a powerful and visually stunning film that offers an intimate glimpse into the life of an Indigenous Kaqchikel family living on the slopes of a Guatemalan volcano. It is a quiet film that immerses you in the daily struggles and rituals of rural life and highlights issues of poverty, gender, and the exploitation of Indigenous communities.
It is the first film ever produced in the Kaqchikel language of the Mayan family. It has a largely non-professional cast from the communities near where it was filmed in Guatemala.
What appeals to you about the way Kaqchikel expresses ideas?
Kaqchikel is one of the Mayan languages, which are super visual languages, super conceptual. The subtitles in the movie are more interpretations than direct translations. “Ixcanul,” which means volcano, isn’t just “volcano.” It is: “the internal force of the mountain which boils looking for eruption.” It’s so beautiful.
Unfortunately, many of those languages have lost a richness in vocabulary over the centuries. Manuscripts were burned. Scrolls were destroyed. And Spanish was favored as the language of the elite.
3. Well-intentioned international adoption can become tainted by profit motives and unethical practices. Rachel Nolen's Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala makes this clear. In the book, Nolen explores the dark side of international adoptions in Guatemala, focusing on the period following the country’s civil war.
In-depth research and personal testimonies demonstrate the devastating emotional toll that occurred when children were frequently forcibly taken from their families and adopted internationally under coercive circumstances. These circumstances were used as a war strategy, with around 40,000 children being kidnapped or otherwise coercively parted from their families.
Again, I learned so much from this book, and it opened my eyes to the human rights abuses that often go unnoticed in the international adoption industry.
4. Rebecca Lane is a feminist rapper who uses music to raise awareness of women’s issues in Guatemala. Sara Curruchic is a Guatemalan indigenous singer who has become an icon in the fight for women’s and indigenous rights. Curruchic is considered the first to perform in her native language, Kaqchikel, as well as Spanish.
5. Guatemala produces some of the world’s best coffee because the volcanic highlands provide the perfect climate for coffee growing. I visited one of the coffee farms that is part of the De La Gente co-operative (more on that below) and was delighted to learn that you can order bags of their coffee to be delivered in the US! It is very good coffee, straight from the source.
6. A Guatemalan visual artist who brought a new style of art to the country, Margarita Azurdia made a name for herself in the 1960s due to her large-scale abstract paintings. She was a fascinating woman (read more about her here) with a continuously transforming art practice.
* for places that I highly recommend
I opted for a direct flight from Chicago to Guatemala City on Avianca (part of the Star Alliance!) to make the most of my time. They don’t offer this route daily, but it worked for me, and the flight was only four and a half hours. The plane was fine, nothing special. In fact, it felt more like a basic domestic US flight (no TVs, no complimentary snacks, medium-sized plane) than anything else. But! It got me there, which is the most important thing.
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