The Blog of Omar

Omar's journal of his travels around South America.

Aztec History 7 – The sacrifices

The Aztecs sacrificed people by the thousands. It is estimated that by the time the Spaniards came, they sacrificed over 50,000 people every year. Their main God was the God of war and the sun. This was a dangerous combination. It meant that every morning he had to fight away the monsters of the night, […]

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Aztec History 6 – Maya to Aztec

The Aztecs started in a village called Aztlan in Mexico, and spread from there. They used to call themselves the Mexica, which is where the name of Mexico originates. (video by Omar and Alvaro, commentary by their dad)

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(pre-)Aztec History 5 – clever steps

The Mayans were clever builders. They built this pyramid with four sides, each side having 91 steps. At the top, there was one more step. What does 4 x 91 + 1 make, and what is the significance of that number? The pyramids in the Americas were mainly step pyramids, not like the ones in […]

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(pre-)Aztec History 4 – The Aztecs didn’t get this far

The Aztecs did not conquer the whole of Mexico. The Mayan town of Chichen Itza was never part of the Aztec empire. Some people say that this is because the Mayans were spread over such a large area, and also that some of their towns were in areas that were hard to reach, such as […]

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(pre-)Aztec History 3 – The Maya

The longest lasting civilisation in the whole of the Americas is the Maya. They started out about 3,500 years ago, and are still in Mexico and Guatamala today. They were partially defeated by the Aztecs, but because they were spread over such a wide area, they weren’t completely beaten by them. These ruins at Chichen […]

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(pre-) Aztec History 2 – How mankind came to Mexico

The human race started out in Africa. It then spread out from there to Asia and to Europe, because these were connected by land to Africa, and people were able to walk across with their animals over several thousand years. There were no humans in the Americas, because there was no way for man to […]

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Aztec history 1 – No Aztecs over here

Although Omar and Alvaro started their trip here in Mexico, which is where the Aztec civilisation was centred, the areas we visited were not occupied by the Aztec. But Omar and Alvaro didn’t let that stop them finding out a little about the Aztecs.

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Review of the playground at the top of Salta

In this playground I think the good things are the slide because it is quite long and slippery, the web because you can climb it and pretend your the kid version of spiderman, and the bridges to cross to different places are different like there are some made of wood and others made of string. […]

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Postcard to Chase Bridge

Dear Chase Bridge, I have had a very nice time in all the countries that I have been to. I have been to Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, and Ecuador (Galapagos), and now I’m in Peru. So far I have liked the Tarzan swing, which is like a rope instead of a vine where you swing […]

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Glaciers

Glaciers are ice sheets on the mountains. At the bottom of a glacier there is earth. Ice comes down from mountains and reaches the bottom of the valley. Ice plates are made when ice is made quicker than it melts. We have been to many glaciers, These are the glaciers that we have seen: Viedma, Perito […]

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Che Guevara

Today we are in the Che museum. I saw his birth certificate and books he read as a child. Che was a very good rugby player. I saw his camera and his bracelet. He had a gun and he used a lantern for his guerilla. I saw his beret that he used in his early […]

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Trinidad Cuba, 20th July 2011

We went on a catamaran and we went snorkelling. In the water I saw some coral and lots of different fish. I saw a school of small yellow fish and I saw an eel. The eel was blue and yellow. My mum spotted some swirly coral and I saw something that looked like seaweed but […]

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Cuba

I have learnt alot of things in Cuba. These are the things I have learnt. There are two currencys. One is pesos convertibles and the other is pesos nacionales. 40 centavos nacionales roughly equals 1p. I learnt about Che and Fidel. There are lots of small birds here but I have not found a humming […]

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7th of July 2011

It was raining today and it is a busy day for the cars. Today we went to a supermarket called Plaza America and we went to buy some flip flops for my sister Aida because she lost her’s in the house that we stayed at. Today I found out that vitamin B would protect you […]

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6th of July 2011

We are going to leave Mexico in three days and go to Cuba. I am looking forward to going to Cuba because I want to see the old cars and the smallest bird in the world, the Male bee humming bird. Yesterday in the 5th July my dad told me the story of Mexico and […]

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Iguazu falls

In the Iguazu falls we went on a helicopter! I was really excited and I could not believe how lucky I was. I felt really lucky that I was 10 the first time I went on a helicopter. And Tariq (my brother) is 3 and he went on the helicopter. When we were flying over […]

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Glaciers

Glaciers are ice sheets on the mountains. At the bottom of a glacier there is earth. Ice comes down from mountains and reaches the bottom of the valley. Ice plates are made when ice is made quicker than it melts. We have been to many glaciers, These are the glaciers that we have seen: Viedma, Perito […]

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Our time in Patagonia

We had a really good time in a place in Patagonia called Chalten.The first day we came here we went out to eat dinner and after our parents let us have an ice cream. The next day we climbed up a hill with teachers from Chalten and they were P.E. teachers. After we walked about […]

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Watching Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires

Watching a game in Buenos Aires is very different from watching a football match in England. First we went to a restaurant, it was very different from the rest of the restaurants because it had no seats or tables so everyone had to stand up while they were eating. The queue for the match was […]

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Bolivia

In Bolivia we firstly went to Copacabana and we were searching for a place to stay. We finally slept in a Hotel. The next day we went to la isla del sol (The island of the sun) and when we got there we had to walk up a mountain that was 500 metres tall. The […]

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Lake Titicaca

Today we are in a lake that is the highest lake that you can cross in altitude, the lake Titicaca. We are going to go to the Uros islands. The Uros islands are man-made and they float. It took us 1 hour to get there and the first thing I realised was that there was […]

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Peru

Today and for roughly two weeks we are working at a school called Aldea Yanapay. At Aldea Yanapay there is a topic every week, and guess what their topic was? English! At the end of the week we had to make a song of what we want to be when we are older. The thing […]

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The Galapagos August 2011

Now we are in the Galapagos Islands and we are having a great time, we went snorkelling with turtles, sealions and some sting rays. My dad saw and eagle ray which is a different kind of sting ray but it is much bigger. I also saw starfish in different colours. One day we had a […]

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Volunteering at the Children’s Eternal Rainforest

Today we volunteered at the children’s eternal rainforest. If we volunteered that means that we work without getting money. We had to clear the leaves out of the path to make compost. That means we did two good things, 1. We cleared the path so people could walk through 2. We could make the leaves […]

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Zip wires in Costa Rica

Today I’m in Costa Rica and I went on lots of Zipwires! I had a great time and a very fun time there. All of the zipwires were great and sometimes as long as 600 metres. The first one was only 40 metres and not so scary. But at first I felt really scared and […]

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Robbery in Buenos Aires

Today the Al-Qasem family had a close escape from being robbed by a robber in a tube in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The robber went in the train as them at the same time, and then when the train went to the very next stop, when the doors opened the robber sneaked into Mr Al-Qasem’s pocket, […]

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La Cupula

  Come to La Cupula and have a brilliant time. Here at La Cupula we have a wide variety of food from Bolivian food to Italian food. While you are waiting for your food you may go to our playground to play or to lie down on our hammocks. While you relax our chefs work […]

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