Week 24: Flores & Semuc Champay

On the first day of week 24 we drove from 1 country to another. Those 2 countries are Belize and Guatemala. We arrived in Flores, in Guatemala, and it was so nice there I could scream! In English, Flores translates to mean ‘flower’; which is really cool. It’s like Isla Mujeres, because Isla Mujeres in English is pronounced “Woman Island”! Anyway, to get out of Placencia we drove in a little van that was very squishy on the inside, because there was quite a few people in there for just a little van.

On Tuesday we didn’t do anything fun or something to look forward to, we just did school, chill and that was sort of it.

The next day we went to even MORE pyramids! These pyramids were called Tikal. Tikal had really, really big pyramids, and we had to climb them! The biggest one was probably about 72 metres tall! Now that’s a big pyramid. At Tikal we also saw some really cool animals, like a toucan, a guatamundi, lizards and even monkeys! All of the animals were amazing. I don’t really know what else to talk about Tikal pyramids because we’ve been to SOOOOOOO…. Many. So I’m just going to end this paragraph here.🛑

On Thursday we had arrived in a new city called Lanquin. The place we were staying at in Lanquin was really cool. In the afternoon (when we had arrived) the people that were in charge of the hotel came up to us and said that there was literally no power at all! It felt like 50 degrees, and we had no fans, air conditioning, lights, chargers that worked, or anything that contained power! It was CRAZY! At the place there was also a basketball court, a gym, free yoga in the morning and so much more cool stuff.

The next day we were still in the NO POWER place. But it was going to be an amazing day no matter what, because we were going…. In caves, tubing, hiking, and swimming in the most prettiest pools I have ever seen! The hiking was the first thing we did. And man was it tough! 🥵. Then, after all of the hiking we finally got to go in the most amazing pools that has EVER EXISTED!!! It was sooooooo refreshing I could die! And the even better thing was that it was soooo cold and we got to stay in the pools for 2 whole hours. It. Was. AMAZING! At the pools I had caught about 10 fish with my bare hands. There was also a slide that you could slide down and you would fall into the water, and when the slide had ended you would make a big SPLASH! It was really cool.

The next activity was a little bit more hiking to get to lunch. Lunch was quite nice, but mum and dad forgot to bring their wallet, so when we woke up the next morning we had to give our tour guide the money, becuase we didn’t have our money here! It was so funny.

Then we went a little bit MORE hiking to the next destination, which was…. Going through a cave with only candles you could use for light! There was sliding down small cracks, there was lots of ladders that you could climb on. It was very similar to the ATM Cave, it’s just it didn’t have SKULLS ☠️ (or did it?). But it was still really cool. My favourite bit was where we got to do a sort of thing were you hold on to the stone, and then you would let go of all the stone, and SPLASH, you would be in the water! It was kinda scary, but really fun.

Our fourth activity was going back home. But wait, it wasn’t just casually going home by walking, but it was going home by…. Tubing down a river!!! It was soooo fun, but a bit difficult because you had to stay in the middle of the river so you didn’t run into a tree. It was mostly fun. My favourite thing about going tubing was the currents, when we went super duper fast down the river. It was amazing.

The next day me and my mum did a chocolate tour. The chocolate tour was really fun and DELICIOUS! I didn’t really listen to the fun facts and that sort of stuff, because the only word or thing on my mind was CHOCOLATE. So after all of the talking and stuff, we were about to make chocolate! And it turns out, even chocolate from the middle of nowhere, is good. It was fun making it, but it was even more fun eating it! It was a really cool experience making chocolate and seeing it get blended and all of that stuff.

Fun facts:

How did Guatemala get its name?

Answer: The name “Guatemala” comes from the Nahuatl word Cuauhtēmallān, or “place of many trees”.

What is the longest river in the world?

Answer: The Nile River in Africa just beats The Amazon River by 6,695 kilometres!

Which country eats the most chocolate?

Answer: Switzerland eats about 8.8kg of chocolate per person, per year!