After a very quick night of sleep, we gathered at the airport at 4:00 am on Friday to board our flight. Everyone was both very excited and not totally awake. With a long wait to check our bags and a massive TSA line, we barely made it on to our plane (through the power of Adithya, getting the plane to literally turn around and wait for us). After two flights and a layover, we made it to Guatemala City around 4 or 5pm. We took a shuttle to the hotel and got our first impressions of the city. At dinner, I had my favorite meal of the trip: cheese pupusas, chips with guacamole, beans, fried plaintain with chocolate, and a cabbage dish. The next day, we had breakfast at the hotel which had an insane array of pastries, fruits, and other dishes. We got ourselves and all our luggage into busses and drove about two hours to Iximche, an archaelogical site and ancient Mayan city.
Here, we learned more about Mayan culture from a tour guide. He explained that the word “Mayan” describes indigenous Guatemalans over a range of time (including AD and BC) and regions. We saw a recent plastic recreation of a stone column inscribed with an ancient writing system and our guide explained about how the Mayans invented zero, recognizing it as the beginning rather than nothingness. The city consisted of three family dwellings that were supported by other people working outside the compounds. Througha combination of violence, disease, and openness of the Mayans to Spanish settlers, the city was destroyed and burned to the ground. One of the most interesting things we saw were the structures where sports competitions likely took place. While there wasn’t record of their use at this site, in similar cities, people have competitions using a 10 pound rubber ball controlled with their hips and knees. The last family dwelling in the city was the only active religious site designated by the state for Mayan communities to continue holding rituals. Since it was the farthest and maybe most inconvenient site to walk to, this sparked a conversation about how preservation of history often tooks precendent over respecting modern Mayan culture.
We stopped for lunch before making the rest of the trip to Panajachel. We checked into our hotel and got dinner at the Circus Bar, a local restaurant just a short walk away with pizza and live music.
