This morning you drive to Antigua, and it’s love at first sight. Cobblestone streets, faded pastel walls, ruined churches, and three volcanoes standing guard over all of it. One of them, Fuego, still puffs smoke into the sky while you’re standing in the plaza. It’s the kind of place you photograph constantly and none of the photos do it justice.

You’ll wander Casa Santo Domingo, a monastery flattened by an earthquake in 1773 and never rebuilt. What’s left is half ruin, half museum, with crumbling tombs and old fountains tucked into the gardens. Then out to the main plaza to get your bearings.

In the afternoon you head to San Antonio Aguas Calientes, a village that weaves some of the finest textiles in the country. You’ll spend it with the women of Chokojol Juyú, a school one woman started because the old weavers were disappearing and the girls had no one left to learn from. They’ll pull you in like you’ve always known them, showing you the backstrap loom tied around your own body, leaning back to hold the thread tight, the exact way their grandmothers did it. They’ll tell you what the patterns mean and why they refuse to let any of it die. And then they’ll feed you, a proper Maya lunch made by hand.