Modern Maya

● Five million people in Central America speak a Maya language today, but the majority of Mexican Maya also speak Spanish.

● Around all the ancient Mayan sites are the villages of present-day Maya. These welcoming people live pretty much as they have for centuries – some in houses and some in the old-style huts – but are mostly farmers just like their ancestors.

● The Mayan religion today is a hybrid of the ancient beliefs and Christianity.

● Visiting our guide’s village, we were shown how to make tortillas in the traditional way on a grinding stone exactly like the ones we’d seen

in ancient settlements.

● Traditional dishes still widely eaten in the area are: Sopa de lima, a vegetable-crammed chicken soup topped with lime-flavoured tortilla strips; and Pollo Pibil, a piece of chicken marinated in anchovies and sour-orange sauce, then wrapped in a banana leaf and slowbaked, preferably in an earth oven.

● The Maya supplement their self-sufficiency by making handicrafts. To buy a handcrafted piece of shiny black obsidian rock, a woven sisal basket or maybe some embroidery or even a hammock from a local village not only helps them provide for their families, but also makes a great souvenir.