“Guatemala City can largely be ignored other than as a transit hub. Many areas are not safe, traffic is terrible, and unless you love urban jungles, your time is probably better spent elsewhere.” That is how my Ultimate Guide to Guatemala described the country’s capital following my first trip here. Now, a mere 24 hours after arriving in Guatemala City at the tail end of my second trip to what is one of my favorite countries, I can safely say: I was wrong. Very wrong. (Note: that guide will be updated to reflect this, and other things learned from this trip, in the next few days.)

While tourists still tend to avoid Guatemala City, and the safety reputation is still not a good one, Guatemala’s capital and largest city does offer some gems to visit, making it worth much more than a footnote to a trip here. There are stunning national monuments, there’s cool architecture, and there are some terrific things to make up a Mayan adventure. That last category is where I focused.

Did you know that Guatemala City was built on top of an abandoned Mayan trading city, and that some of the ruins of that former habitation can be visited? I didn’t either prior to stumbling across an exhibition of artifacts from Kaminaljuyu at a museum in Antigua Guatemala. But from about 1500 BCE to 1200 CE, a time period encompassing pre-classical, classical, and post-classical Mayan history, this place was a reasonably large trading city. And some of it can be visited today!

Before Spanish colonization of Guatemala, the area that now holds Guatemala City was home to a large lake. And around that lake was a large – in size – city. Kaminaljuyu held a population of perhaps 25,000, a small number but with an outsized importance. The city never had a king, and seemed simply to focus on trade. That makes a ton of sense given its location – between the Mayan lowlands and highlands, and with access to huge caches of obsidian, the volcanic rock the Mayans and other pre-Columbian American civilizations used for tools and weapons.

In its prime, Kaminaljuyu is thought to have had roughly 200 mounts (pyramids and temples now covered by sediment). 32 of these still stand, and 9 are inside the small boundaries of an archaeological park in Guatemala City’s zone 7. The remaining 23 still standing are sprinkled into parts of a few different zones in the city, looking like small hills.

Entrance to the site includes a tour guide, for a circuit of a bit over an hour that seems to be constantly restarting. (One group arrived on my tour in the middle, and just continued to do what I had started with after mine finished.) The tour is in both Spanish and English, depending on what participants speak.

Buildings at Kaminaljuyu are made of mud, clay, and pumice as opposed to the limestone of the lowlands or the hard rock of the highlands. As a result, they are especially sensitive to the elements. So as the mounds here in the park were excavated, they were covered back up for protection. So most of what you’ll see – and ALL of what you’ll see if you choose not to pay for the tour – is those grass-covered hills. But with the tour comes access to two sections where the buildings have been left exposed, and merely covered with roofs and fences.

One of these areas is thought to be mainly residential, with ruins resembling what you’d find in a city block of Pompeii or any other ruined city in the world: outlines of buildings as walls crumbled and thatched roofs disintegrated. The area includes what was probably a pool, as water channels lead away from a central communal area.

The other area is the easy highlight of a visit to Kaminaljuyu: a narrow street with remains of ceremonial buildings around. These pyramidal structures have features that resemble those of other Mayan cities of the period, but being done of mud and clay lends a feeling of them being temporary. They weren’t, but it feels like it.

A visit to Kaminaljuyu will take about 90 minutes, so with the remainder of a Mayan day in Guatemala City, you’ll want to head to the National Museum of Mayan Archaeology and Ethnology. Located near the airport, the museum is one of several here done in similar styles. Entrance is cash only, and treats you to the largest collection of Mayan artifacts in all of Guatemala, and possibly the world.

Signage in the museum is lousy. Artifacts are given date ranges and locations, but nothing else is explained even in Spanish, let alone in English. So visits will be shorter than if one had significant things to read. But wow, the collection!

Ceremonial objects, jewelry, household items, and more sit alongside huge (ten feet or taller) stelae with well-preserved Mayan pictographs on them. Carvings of gods or kings (it’s hard to know without explanation), calendars, records… each room will bring audible exhales of excitement at new discoveries.

The stelae are the easy highlights, as the simple size and scale of them, plus their condition after more than a millennium of element exposure, is almost hard to believe. These make it easy to see the perfect square patterns of the Mayan written language, although it would be nice to have any idea what was written.

But the jewelry in jade is also something that is almost unbelievable, especially the total collection of what is thought to be a king from Tikal’s Jaguar Temple. I can only imagine how heavy this ensemble would have been, especially the ear pieces!

As with Kaminaljuyu, a visit will take roughly 90 minutes, maybe two hours if you spend extra time looking through the modern Mayan clothing. (Remember, this is still a living culture.) Coming out, you’ll be overwhelmed, inspired, and ready for dinner. Fortunately, there is Flor de Lis for that.

Flor de Lis is billed as Guatemala’s top fine dining restaurant. A tiny place, it holds seven tables plus a bar facing into the open kitchen. For a bit under $100 per person, you’ll be walked through some truly fascinating dishes, all of which are inspired either by Mayan food or Mayan mythology. Servers become storytellers, and plates turn into backdrops for a fun Mayan evening.

Twelve courses ranging from tiny corn fritters called ixmukane served from a smoking mask to a white fish course called “Heart of Man, Heart of Fish” around a Mayan myth of a man who turned into a fish took roughly two hours. Courses were spaced well, and the progression was a terrific one, with just a single miss for me, a palace cleanser made from salted mango.

As the restaurant advertises, “we eat culture, we serve stories.” It is true, and a lovely way to finish a Mayan day in Guatemala City.

Guatemala City gets a bad reputation, especially with travelers. I have to own my part in reinforcing that up to now, playing to the stereotype of the city being unsafe and holding little of interest. Well, I was wrong, and so are those others who malign the Guatemalan capital. A day spent exploring Mayan ruins, artifacts, and cuisine is just one way to add an incredible day here.

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