MAPS OF OUR TRIP

My dad and I made a map of the places we went to on our trip. We also took a picture of a map painted on a wall at our hotel in Palenque. We took buses to all of the places we visited.

Diario de Comida

During our trip we wrote a food diary (diario de comida) of all of the meals we ate. I liked the foods we ate on our trip. My favorite things were the tacos, quesadillas, salbutes and licuados. We ate at a lot of food stands and cooked some of our meals.

Here is my food diary of my last week in the Yucatan:

Desayuno Breakfast
Huevos Eggs
Rosquilla Doughnuts
Cereal con leche y frutas Cereal with milk and fruit
Tamales pollo con frijoles Chicken tamales with beans
Licuado pina con leche Pineapple smoothie with milk
Licuado melon con leche Cantaloupe smoothie with milk
Licuado sandia y platano con leche Watermelon and banana smoothie with milk

CENOTES DE CUZAMA

My family and I are staying in Merida. On Monday we went to some cenotes. Cenotes are an underground water hole. There are about 6,000 cenotes in the Yucatan.

We got to the cenotes by going on a bus for one hour then took a moto-cab to the cenotes. The moto-cab is a cart connected to a motorcycle. When we got to the cenotes we took a cart that was getting pulled by a horse then another moto-cab took us to another horse cart.

There were three cenotes and we visited all of them. Two of them were in a cave and you had to go down a steep ladder to get in the cenotes. One of them you had to use a flashlight to see. I liked the one that was not in a cave because the ones in the caves were too stuffy and hot. I liked going to the cenotes.

Flamencos en Celustun

 flamingos flying 

Flamencos is the spanish word for flamingos. I went to a town called Celustun and went on a boat ride to see pink flamingos.The flamingos were in the ocean and a river. When we saw the flamingos they were eating and flying.We also saw two crocodiles and some other types of birds. On our boat ride we went through a mangrove tunnel. 

Facts about flamingos:

• When  flamingos rest they stand on one leg
•  Flamingos live in mangrove swamps.
•  Pink flamingos are pink because they eat lots of shrimp.
• When they migrate they can fly up to 37 mph.

RESOURCE: Flamingo Facts.

THE WALLED CITY OF CAMPECHE

On the wall

We left San Cristobal and took a 13-hour bus ride to Campeche. The city of Campeche was built by the Spaniards in the 1500's. It is located on the Gulf of Mexico in the Yucatan Peninsula.

There is a wall around the city that was built in 1686-1704 to protect it from pirates. The pirates were after red dye made from logwood trees. The wall is shaped as a hexagon and is 8,400 feet around and 26 feet tall. There were also forts on the outside of the wall on hills that were looking over the ocean. 

When we first got to Campeche we walked on the wall and saw the ocean. We also visited one of the forts. The fort had a moat around it with no water in it. There were also cannons.

Today the city is very colorful. The buildings are all the colors of the rainbow.

Cocinar en San Cristobal de las Casas

Pineapple and mango.

When we were in San Cristobal we had a nice apartment with a kitchen. We would cook most of our meals there and I helped. Our first night there we had noodles with camaronnes (shrimp). It took a long time to take off the heads and peel of the shell.

We had this little fruit and vegetable shop that we would go to a lot and get stuff to make soup and fruit salad. There was also a bread shop that we would go to get bread to make French toast. One morning I cut up a pineapple (pina) and some mango with my dad and ate it with the French toast. It was good.

We had a lot of chicken soup because there were a lot of people selling roasted chicken and we wanted soup. We ate the chicken by itself but used the chicken bones to make soup stock.

PALENQUE MAYANS

Temple where Sunflower Shield's tomb was found

The Mayans were an old civilization that lived in Southern Mexico and Central America. They built their cities out of rocks like limestone. Their cities had a lot of temples with steep stairs. There were tombs under the temples. One of their rulers at Palenque was named Sunflower Shield or Lord Pakal. Sixty years ago archaeologists found his tomb. He was the ruler from 615-683, over 1400 years ago.

We visited the ruins in Palenque and saw the temple that Sunflower Shield was buried in. When he died his son Jaguar Serpent took over the city. I climbed the steep temples where they lived. I also saw some of the masks that they wore on their heads.

Carnaval

When we were in Chetumal we saw a big festival, and when we were at Lago Bacular we some people that were getting ready for a parade. All of a sudden we found out it was time for Carnaval.

It was very loud and there were a lot of people at Carnaval. There was a stage with people on it that were dancing. The stage was very big and had a bunch of lights on it. People were dancing with costumes on. The costumes were very colorful and feathery with puff balls on their heads.

Ruinas Tulum

I went to the Tulum ruins and thought it was very interesting. By the ruins there was a beach and I went swimming in the water. The city was built by the Mayans in the early 1200s. My mom and dad think they were very smart because they built a city next to a beautiful beach. It was one of the only Mayans cities that had a wall and there were a lot of cities.

Tulum is the Mayan word for wall. That’s what it is called now but in its day it was called zama which means dawn. We saw temples that had carvings and some small entrances. When we entered the city the passageway through the wall was very thick. They liked to do a lot of rituals on a temple and in the courtyards.

Black spiny-tailed iguanas

Today we went to the Tulum ruins and there were so many lizards it seemed like there was a zoo of lizards and they all escaped. We would see one then we looked closer and would see six more on the roof and on the base of the building. They were in the sun and on the rocks, and one was eating grass. We know why there were so many lizards at the ruins—it’s because the Black Spiny-Tailed Iguanas like rocky places with trees to climb.

When we got home we did some research. I learned that black spiny-tailed iguanas:

Murals in Tulum

As we were walking and biking in Tulum we saw some murals on walls and buildings. You can see how big they are by looking at the truck and turtle picture. The murals are very colorful and are a lot more interesting then just a plain wall. My favorite one is the one with the people that have fish heads and are at a bar.

¿Cuanto Cuesta?

How much does it cost? When you are travelling it’s sometimes hard to know how much things cost. One reason it is hard to know if things are expensive or not is because we don’t know how much things are worth. For example a burrito with a horchata at a food stand in Mexico costs $2.25 (40 pesos) but at a restaurant in Point Arena it costs $10.00 with a horchata and a burrito.  One USA dollar costs 18 pesos. I came up with some word problems that show how much things cost.

BIENVENIDOS A MEXICO

My family and I left Point Arena to go to southern Mexico. We first went to Cancun and had some good food. We found a plaza called Parque de las Palapas and it had a lot of food stands. Last night there was a man singing and people were dancing to the music. My mom wanted me to dance but I did not want to (even though my teacher Ms. Liz would like it!).

Food stands