Guatemala
I travelled to Guatemala over Christmas 2017. The country is over 60 per cent Maya, making it the most indigenous country in Central America. Even more impressive for such a little country, there are 20 Mayan languages - and none are mutually intelligible.
Less known are the Garifuna people, a few thousand of whom live in Guatemala's sliver of Caribbean coast. Descendants of African and Carib people, they arrived in Guatemala via slave ships, Caribbean islands and Honduras. They, too, have their own language, based largely on the ancient Carib language, and their food, music and dance is a fascinating blend of the Caribbean, Latin America, and above all, Africa: a continent they have never known but which lives on in their souls.
Less known are the Garifuna people, a few thousand of whom live in Guatemala's sliver of Caribbean coast. Descendants of African and Carib people, they arrived in Guatemala via slave ships, Caribbean islands and Honduras. They, too, have their own language, based largely on the ancient Carib language, and their food, music and dance is a fascinating blend of the Caribbean, Latin America, and above all, Africa: a continent they have never known but which lives on in their souls.