Guatemala's cloud forest capital — Q'eqchi' Maya cardamom farms, Semuc Champey's impossible turquoise pools, and kaq'ik turkey stew
Cobán is the departmental capital of Alta Verapaz (population 230,000), a misty cloud forest region in north-central Guatemala where the Maya Highlands meet the lowland rainforests of Petén. The city sits at 1,320m in a bowl of coffee and cardamom plantations — Alta Verapaz produces 70% of the world's cardamom (Guatemala as a whole produces more cardamom than any country except India), and the spice's camphor-sweet scent permeates the Cobán market. The area's Q'eqchi' Maya community (the largest Maya linguistic group in Guatemala) maintains weaving, ceremonial, and food traditions that surviv…
Cobán was founded as a Dominican mission in 1543 after Bartolomé de las Casas persuaded the Spanish Crown that the region (then called Tezulutlán — Land of War — for its successful resistance to armed conquest) should be pacified by missionaries. The city became an enclave for German coffee planters from the 1880s: families like the Dieseldorffs established vast fincas (plantations) that dominated Alta Verapaz's economy until 1944's democratic revolution and subsequent land reforms. German nationals who hadn't taken Guatemalan citizenship were expelled as enemy aliens during World War II at U…