At one with nature, clay pots as lamp shades, bamboo poles as towel racks or shower rods, pine needles to texture walls, or old bottles and bamboo as lighting fixtures, everywhere you turn in Guatemala you can see how natural elements are used creatively.  There is such ingenuity around ways to repurpose materials that might otherwise be discarded.  The saying goes “necessity is the mother of invention” and here in Guatemala this expression comes to life in a myriad of ways.  It is a country rich in natural resources, especially its people, which is arguably its greatest treasure. Like many places around the world, in Guatemala there is an uneven distribution of wealth and opportunities. That being said, beauty is bountiful in Guatemala and can be seen in the amazing textiles, the flowers and gardens bursting with colors, in artisans’ work, and in the food. 

When you walk down the streets your senses come alive with the cacophony of smells, sounds and colors and there is a richness to life that draws you in. In Antigua, a colonial city dating back to the 1500s, you see the juxtapositioning of ancient Mayan culture alongside Spanish colonial architecture and modern innovations.  On one of our wanderings around the city we stopped by a local Starbucks, which exemplified how history and culture can clash harmoniously and make for an exquisite experience.

Of course, we quickly realized that the coffee produced here in Guatemala is excellent when we traveled to “Finca Filadefia” to take a coffee tour and to learn all about the process from grain to cup. We rode up into the mountains to see how the coffee grows and to learn about the cycle of production from flowering to harvesting and then went on to the wet processing plant where the coffee is taken out of the red shell, which contains two beans face to face.  After being left to ferment for a bit in tanks it is then moved to drying fields where it is raked continuously to air out and dry before going to the dry processing plant where it is categorized based on size, weight and shape.  Then it is ready to be roasted and ground and put in a cup to be savored!