Adventures of Desmundo

In Lake Atitlan and in Puerto Vallarta I learned how to Scuba dive. You have to do a lot of studying, have to read a very big book, answer a lot of questions, take a lot of tests, and then do skills in  the water to prove that you know what to do, when to do it, and why. To the dives. On my first Open water dive (In Lake Atitlan) Sam (my dive instructor) and I went down to 10 meters (30 feet). We swam in an underwater swimming pool, and then went into an underwater sauna. After that we swam to a far away rock. We put our hands under the rock and the sand was warm! It was an underwater hotspot! This dive site was called auga caliente (hot water). My second dive (also in Lake Atitlan) was also down to 10 meters (30 feet). This dive site is called Casa del Mundo. (house of the world) At this dive  site there were lots of underwater stair cases, terraces, and platforms. Under those, there were lots of big rocks. Around those we found a screw, a large rusty Allen wrench, (whi

Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a Mexican holiday to celebrate the dead. It goes on for 5 days (Oct 29 - Nov 2). In Puerto Vallarta, on November 2 there is a parade. My dad and I went to it. There were hundreds of people in the parade. All of them dressed up with face paint, dresses, fancy shirts, and skeleton costumes.  There were floats, people on motorcycles, all sorts of bands, people on horses, 15 foot tall puppets controlled by one person, and a group of four people that climb up to the top of a really tall pole and then tie themselves to ropes and then swing around the pole upside down while playing music. Some people sell “tacos de Cabeza.” Cabeza is the spanish word for head. It is used to describe the meat from a roasted head of a beef animal, served as taco fillings. Here are some of the photos that my dad took the of things that we saw.

Our house is now in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Puerto Vallarta is a big city on the Pacific coast. We live in an apartment on top of a cafe. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a living room that is right next to the kitchen. We have six restaurants within a block and the beach is about a ten-minute walk from us. Our house also has a terrace circling half of our house and a terrace on the roof. The temperature is much warmer than what we were used to in Lake Atitlan and Antigua. The temperature has been around 90 degrees since we have been here (two days). Puerto Vallarta has a population of 307,107 people and 5,000,000 (five million) tourists per year. Puerto Vallarta is located in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. My first impressions of the city were hot, noisy, large, lots of cars, and everything you needed, really close to where you live.

We have a pool at our villa. Right now it is sunny and warm so we went swimming. We have a small ball and my dad threw it over the pool and I would try to jump and catch it in mid-air before I touched the water.We took turns throwing the ball to each other. I took a timelapse of it. Don’t know what a time lapse is? I will tell you. A timelapse is a camera taking a picture every 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, or 5 seconds and then putting them all together so they come out in a really fast video, like this. This one is the game that my dad and I played. Timelapses are really cool, so whenever you get a chance to use that feature you should use it.

On September 30th I turned 11. FedEx was supposed to ship birthday presents along with my dad’s new phone, some mints, and fish oil. That stuff was supposed to get here before my birthday, on like the 26th or something. NOT. It got here on the 6th of October!! Like 10 days late!! Anyway. One of the Lego sets that I got was a model of the Arc de Triomphe or Arc of Triumph. It has 386 tiny pieces and it took me about 45 minutes to build. The instructions were kind of complicated. This was also my first Lego architecture set. The Arc de Triomphe (Arc of Triumph) is a 162 ft tall, 150 ft wide, and 72 ft deep white limestone structure located at the western end of the Champs-Elysees in Paris, France. The arc was built over 30 years (1806-1838). The construction was halted in 1814 because Napoleon was defeated. The construction was picked back up in 1833 in the name of King Louis-Philippe I. The Arc was built in honor of Napoleon. In fact, the first stone was laid on Napoleon’s birt

The Iguana Perdida is a restaurant that is in front the Santa Cruz dock. Santa Cruz is where we live. So it is not too far from our house, only a ten-minute walk or so. When you go through the gate you come into a large patio area. (It depends on your patio size because if you have a big patio I would say it is medium. If you have a small patio I would say it would be big.) Anyway. When you go in, you see a room with a bunch of tables and chairs. Of to the right, there is a door that goes out onto a deck overlooking the lake. Then you can go through an arch (From the deck) out onto the patio. Back to the room with a lot of tables. When you come in and go straight (not right onto the deck) you come to a bar. Then you can go through a door and you come out into a  room with lots of couches, pillows, and instruments. There is also a TV. In the table room, on your left, there is a computer room, and after that (right before the bar) the kitchen.                                        

 Lake Atitlan was once a massive volcano that blew up 84,000 years ago. It created a gigantic crater that eventually filled with water creating a huge lake,  now called Lake Atitlan. Lake Atitlán is the deepest lake in Central America. Its surface area is 50 square miles. The lake's deepest depth of about 1,120 feet.                                                                         Will post more pictures soon!

My family and I just moved from Antigua, Guatemala to Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. We are staying near a small town called Santa Cruz La Laguna. We are staying in a large villa called Villa Eggedal. The only reason that I say it is large is that the estate has 10 acres of outside area. It has a pool, four houses ( the main house, Wenche, a house with 2 apartments, and the house that we are staying at Haga n) Hagan is small compared to our house in Antigua but it has four bedrooms, nice kitchen, nice living room, and something that is really strange, the two bathrooms are right next to each other. The bathrooms are also on the opposite side of the bedrooms. Strange right? That is pretty much it of our house. We also have a deck that looks out over the lake. Also a little open sitting area beneath the deck. That is all for now!

Yesterday my family and I went to a sculpture garden. It was on top of a very big hill called "Cerro del Tenedor," or "Fork on the Hill." Our ride up was basically a small flatbed truck with four rows of seats on the back with a canopy over the seats. It would seat about twelve people. The  ride up was beautiful. It was clear so you could see everything. On the ride up we saw sculptures of people shooting bows and arrows, an owl, and several other things. We also saw a small helicopter pad mowed onto a small field. You could see a lot-lot-lot of small chimneys. When we got to the top my m om and I  went on a zip line. This zip line course had eight zip lines, two bridges, a walking path, and a tower. The tower was super tall and when we got to the top we took a long zip line all the way down to the ground. The whole thing took about an hour and a half. It was super fun!!!! When we got done we decided to get lemonade but the line was super long and it barely moved i

Friday we hiked a volcano called pacaya. It is semi-active. The hike was not too difficult and there was a lot of horse poop on the way. Once we got to the top it wasn't really the top. We were on a ridge that overlooked the lava field below. We got to go down to the lava field where there was lots and lots and lots and lots of lots of lots of lots and lots of lava rocks. The lava field is where all the lava comes down and then hardens. When you are in the lava field you can look up to a ridge on one side and the actual Peak on the other side. The peak was mostly not visible because of the clouds. It was so cool being in the lava field. I got to take some small lava rocks home. There were sulfur spots where you could see sulfur coming out from underneath the rocks. They had a little shop where you could buy jewelry with lava rocks in them. Will post pictures soon!!!!

When I showed the pictures of the house, I forgot to mention the rooftop. I will show you some pictures of me on the rooftop   It is nice at the top. Now I will show you some of the things that you can see from the top of our house. These are our three chimneys. This is the top of our kitchen. These are two dogs that live across the street. The white one does not like me being on our rooftop. He always barks when I'm up there. The brown one is very nice he or she always keeps quiet.

Today we went to a small Museum about chocolate. You could sample chocolates and buy chocolates. I took a picture of a squirrel sculpture eating a cacao fruit. Here it is. I also took some pictures of the process and where chocolate comes from. After we look through the small Museum, we went two a little shop the back of the museum where they sold different flavor waffles with ice cream, sprinkles, hunks of chocolate, chocolate syrup, and different kinds of fruit. All in one massive waffle shaped into a cone. Like a waffle cone that you get at an ice cream shop except way bigger. At first I did not believe this picture I'm about to show you. It was a poster on the way in. But...... It was so good...... 🍫+🍦+🎂+🍍+🍓= what that is. Here is me about to eat it.

My mom working 

This is our kitchen. Dinning Room. Outdoor den. Indoor den.

Outdoor terrace on 2nd floor.