Guatemala

Discover Guatemala

Fun Foods

Corn Tortillas, Black Beans, Pepián, Jocón, Guacamole, Rellenitos, Guatemalan Chocolate

In 2018, scientists flew an airplane over Guatemala’s jungle and fired thousands of laser beams down through the trees every second. They found more than 60,000 ancient Maya buildings that had been hiding under the leaves for centuries.

The lasers revealed houses, roads, walls, and even a fortress. At Tikal, one of the most famous Maya cities, a “hill” that people had walked past for years turned out to be a pyramid about 30 meters (90 feet) tall.

More than a thousand years ago, the Maya built great cities across this land, with stone temples rising above the treetops.

They were among the first people to make chocolate, mixing cacao beans into frothy drinks. Cacao beans were so valuable they were even traded like money.

In the 1520s, Spanish soldiers led by Pedro de Alvarado conquered the region. The Spanish forced many Maya to work on their farms and took much of their land.

Guatemala won its independence from Spain in 1821. But for a long time, a small group of powerful people kept most of the land and wealth.

In 1954, an elected president was pushed out in a coup backed by the United States. In 1960, a civil war began between the government and rebel groups, and it lasted 36 years.

It was the darkest time in the country’s history. More than 200,000 people were killed or disappeared, and more than 8 in 10 of them were Maya.

A United Nations-backed commission later found that the army had carried out genocide, an attempt to destroy a whole group of people, against some Maya communities.

A Maya woman named Rigoberta Menchú spoke out to the world about what was happening, and in 1992 she won the Nobel Peace Prize. The war finally ended with a peace deal in 1996.

Today, you can climb the steep stone temples of Tikal, deep in the jungle. In the old colonial city of Antigua, cobblestone streets wind between bright buildings and crumbling churches, with volcanoes rising all around.

Hike Pacaya, an active volcano where the ground stays so hot that visitors roast marshmallows over its steaming cracks. Or take a boat across Lake Atitlán, ringed by three volcanoes and Maya villages.

For food, try pepián, the national dish, a rich stew of chicken in a sauce of toasted seeds and dried chilies. Fresh corn tortillas come with nearly every meal.

For dessert, bite into rellenitos, fried mashed plantains stuffed with sweet beans and dusted with sugar.

Sources: Smithsonian: Laser Scans Reveal 60,000 Hidden Maya Structures, Nobel Women’s Initiative: Rigoberta Menchú Tum, and Center for Justice and Accountability: Guatemala.