San Pedro La Laguna

For centuries the shore beneath the San Pedro volcano has been home to the Tz'utujil, one of the Maya peoples of Lake Atitlán. After the Spanish conquest the community was organised as an encomienda, a grant of Indigenous labour and tribute to a Spanish settler, and Catholicism, brought in the 16th century, became the dominant religion. The town grew on a plateau above the lake, its roads running down either side of a steep ridge to the water, and its people farmed maize, beans and later coffee and avocados on the volcano's slopes. In June 1925 the townspeople were granted rights to their municipal territory.

San Pedro remained relatively untouched by the wider violence of the civil war of 1960–96, but between 1980 and 1982 it suffered a series of kidnappings and murders, later attributed to local military commissioners; they ended in August 1982 when higher military officials intervened.

After the war, travellers discovered the town. Spanish schools opened, guesthouses and cafés spread along the lakeshore, and San Pedro became one of the lake's main destinations for backpackers and language students, with a small but growing community of foreign residents from North America, Europe and Israel.

San Pedro is overwhelmingly Tz'utujil, and Tz'utujil is the town's own Maya language. Some women still make belts, shawls and skirts on backstrap looms, and Indigenous medical traditions are still commonly practised by healers known as curanderos. The Museo Tz'unun 'Ya documents local history and customs.

Religion is layered. Catholicism has been dominant since the 16th century, but about half the population still practises traditional Maya rituals, separately or alongside another faith. The lake's afternoon wind, the Xocomil, is said to carry away sin, and if the wind blows from the north, local belief holds that the lake is giving up someone it has drowned.

The town has also become a centre for language learning around the lake, with many Spanish schools and students who stay for weeks, and it is known for its nightlife. In 2010 a synagogue and kosher restaurant opened for the growing number of Jewish visitors and residents, and many Israeli-run businesses have Hebrew signs. San Pedro also trains large numbers of teachers who work in schools around the lake.

The 2018 census counted about 11,000 people in the municipality, nearly all of them Tz'utujil, and the town is divided into cantons, among them Pacucha, Chuacante, Chuasanahi and Tzanjay. It lies in the department of Sololá, about an hour off the Pan-American Highway, with direct buses to Guatemala City and Quetzaltenango. Farming remains important, with maize, beans, coffee and avocados grown on the slopes of the volcano, alongside weaving, teaching and a large tourist trade of schools, guesthouses, restaurants, guides and boats.

Two worlds share the town. On the plateau the market and the buses from the highway set a local rhythm; down by the docks, travellers, language students and foreign residents fill the cafés, bars and guesthouses. Crossings are best made before the Xocomil rises around midday.

The health of the lake is a constant concern. In October 2016 the town banned single-use plastics, and residents have long complained of contamination from pollution, population growth and tourism, and of cyanobacteria, whose blooms have increased since 2009.

San Pedro eats like the rest of the highlands. Tortillas come with every meal, alongside black beans, eggs, fresh cheese, chillies and herbs, and tamales and chuchitos are steamed in maize husks or leaves. Pepián, the seed-thickened stew, is cooked for fiestas, and atol, a warm maize drink, is sold at markets across the region. Much of the town's food is grown on its own slopes, from maize and beans to avocados.

Coffee is the town's other crop. It is grown around the volcano, and the village guides' association arranges coffee tours that follow the bean from the plant to the cup. Many cafés by the lake serve locally grown coffee.

For visitors, the lanes between the docks are lined with cafés, bars and restaurants catering to an international crowd, with menus that run from Guatemalan set lunches to falafel and other Israeli dishes, and cheap street food is sold near the Panajachel dock. Rum and aguardiente, cheap cane spirit, are widely drunk across the highlands.