Cobán, Guatemala · UTC-6 ☆

Cobán sits high in the Alta Verapaz highlands, wrapped in perpetual cloud cover that the Q’eqchi’ Maya call the xococ mist. At roughly 1,300 meters elevation, the city’s light is diffuse and cooler than Guatemala City’s valley heat. The clock, though, is the same: UTC-6, all year.

Guatemala abolished daylight saving time in 1977 and has not returned to it. The country sits between roughly 14 and 18 degrees north latitude, close enough to the equator that sunrise and sunset don’t vary dramatically by season. In Cobán, the winter solstice sunrise comes around 6:20am and the summer solstice around 5:30am. Shifting clocks would gain almost nothing.

Coffee, cardamom, and the harvest clock

The town’s rhythm follows the Q’eqchi’ market calendar and the coffee harvest. Cobán is the center of Guatemalan cardamom and coffee production, and the fields define when people wake. Cobaneros say the day starts with fog and ends with more fog. But the buses leave on time regardless: the terminal is busy by 5:30am.

Convert 9am Cobán time to London

Sources

• IANA Time Zone Database
• Instituto Nacional de Sismología, Vulcanología, Meteorología e Hidrología (INSIVUMEH)
• Fischer, Edward F. Cultural Logics and Global Economies: Maya Identity in Thought and Practice. University of Texas Press, 2001.