Lexus Lifestyle - Living, Lasting Color (Guatemala)

IT'S HIGH NOON in Ciudad Vieja, and wicker globes of firecrackers, earth-rumbling bombas and javelin-like bottle rockets are rocking this hill town about an hour's drive west of Guatemala City. Smoke from the pyrotechnics, ignited to announce imminent festivities, briefly envelopes the town's whitewashed colonial church, leaving a peppery scent in the air.

It's the Baile de Vente-quatro Diablos, when masked devils take to the streets to dramatize the consequences of vice. One fearsome demon, whose red-and-black mask sports a long tongue, warns of the dangers of lying. Another, chugging from a bottle and staggering about, depicts the danger of excessive drink.

Accompanied by haunting music from rough-hewn marimbas, horns, and drums, six plays are underway in the town's plaza. Hundreds of local spectators—women in brilliant blouses with babies slung in shawls on their backs, men in cowboy hats, kids peeking reverently around their parents' legs—form circles around each performance. Few foreigners witness these rituals that date from the 1500s, when conquistadors first reached Guatemala.

Above me the bottle rockets start flying sideways. One skitters across the cobblestones at my feet before popping. A couple of grizzled men pat me on the back, laughing. Welcome to our world, they seem to be saying, an authentic place where anything goes and no one calls the lawyers.

LARGELY UNDISCOVERED
This is Guatemala: an unvarnished celebration of indigenous culture, still largely undiscovered more than five centuries after Columbus arrived in the New World. When I first visited in the 1980s, signs inside buses advised passengers: "Please keep the bus clean: throw your trash out the window." The country has come a long way since then, with initiatives such as Alianza Verde's Green Deal, which certifies hotels and attractions based on eco-standards.

"Guatemala is still virgin in many ways," says Alianza Verde's director Saul Blanco. "You can still find undiscovered regions in the highlands." What makes the country unique, Blanco says, is its deep-rooted Mayan heritage. Visiting now is a "precious opportunity" to see Mayan communities in virtually unblemished villages, he says. Alianza Verde's goal is to preserve natural systems in a way that benefits local people, so everyone has a stake in a green future.

Four miles from Ciudad Vieja is the colonial city of Antigua, set on a compact grid of calles (streets) and avenidas. I first came to Antigua in 1989 to study Spanish. Some things have changed: the men who once shot Polaroids for tourists in Parque Central have gone digital, the park now has free wi-fi, and the city employs a fleet of biodiesel trucks fueled by cooking oil from its restaurants.

• WHERE TO STAY
• Antigua: Casa Santo Domingo
• Lake PetenItz: La Lancha
• Lake Atitlàn: Casa del Mundo

To the south is the conical Agua Volcano; to the west, an active volcano called Fuego sends puffs of milky smoke into the sky. Antigua's streets are numbered but most of the signs simply have names, such as Calle de Sangre de Cristo, making it easy to lose your way. Yet that's part of the town's charm, where a wrong turn can lead to discovering an art gallery, jade shop, or a barbecue restaurant.

My base is Antigua's signature hotel, Casa Santo Domingo, built among the colonial ruins of a convent; the hotel typifies Antigua's investment in its heritage. Carved wooden saints and ceremonial urns abound, and the grounds are lush with bougainvillea and resplendent guayacama birds. After sunset the walkways are gilt-lit by hundreds of luminarias.

The convent was built in 1542 but destroyed in a 1773 quake that leveled much of Antigua and led to the capital's relocation to modern-day Guatemala City, explains guide Elizabeth Bell of Antigua Tours. As she speaks, Fuego Volcano coughs up another plume: "We like it when it goes off," Bell says, "because we feel it reduces stress."

YOU CAN FEEL THE MAYA HERE
Roughly half of Guatemala's population of 13 million is indigenous: these descendants of the Maya compose 22 distinct peoples, each with its own language, customs, and style of weaving. The city-state of Tikal, tucked away in the Peten jungle in the north, is the best example of Mayan civilization. Tikal's heyday was marked by the creation of great pyramids in the 7th through 9th centuries A.C.E. It was home to 60,000 people.

"You can feel the Maya here," says 22-year-old local tour guide David Reyes. "The same trees they used for medicine are here, the same birds, rivers, ambiance." Reyes drives slowly from Tikal's park entrance to the inner gate. On arrival, a guard checks the time stamped on our pass to make sure we took at least 20 minutes; this way, the park ensures that visitors drive leisurely, as not to endanger the wildlife.

We hike into the jungle past ceiba trees, whose sheetlike roots grow several feet above ground, buttressing the trees in the shallow soil. To the Maya, the ceiba is the tree of life, its powerful roots supporting the universe. Spider monkeys swing from their branches, while in the distance a howler monkey roars, a sign for others to respect his territory. Raccoon-like coatimundis scamper across the Gran Plaza, their long tails held high. The Gran Plaza is the ceremonial center of Tikal, and wild turkeys salute our arrival by showing off their plumage.

Flanked by two temple pyramids about 200 feet high, it was here that kings were buried, sacrifices made, and an ancient Mayan game, played with a rubber-and-stone ball, was contested. David and I climb a wooden staircase up the 210-foot-high Temple IV as the skies slowly darken, lending a mystical calm to the once-thriving city. Hiking out, we see fireflies alighting the Gran Plaza.

CASTING ITS SPELL
The next morning, after a short flight back to Guatemala City, I drive three hours to the spectacularly scenic Lake Atitlán. Backed by three volcanoes, encircled by a dozen small villages, the lake wastes no time in casting its spell. Panajachel is the main village, and every so often I hear tiny water taxis cruising the lake, their captains singing out, "Pana...Pana...Panajachel," offering trips to ferry guests for a few quetzals.

Due north of the lake, I find the town of Chichicastenango, a trading hub of the western highlands since pre-Columbian times, a place where women still sell tapestries and blouses woven on traditional Mayan backstrap looms. It's the week before Christmas, which means the Santo Tomás festival is in full swing-a fitting bookend to my journey.

About 60 indigenous Mayans in conquistador masks dance to a thumping beat of a marimba band in the colonial plaza. A village elder shakes a tambourine and sparks a spinning globe of firecrackers. Bombas detonate at ground level, shaking the cobblestones, then launch skyward to explode again. I soak up the cacophonic scene from across the plaza, marveling at the Maya's ability to sustain their traditions through centuries of tumult, and hoping I escape another celebratory, fiery brush with local ritual.