When I was 13, my journey in a great valley changed my attitude towards the recording of a travel. During the trip, I was busy recording every event, name and place I came across. I felt proud to {#blank#}1{#/blank#} my time, keeping a {#blank#}2{#/blank#}description of my travels. On my last night there, after I {#blank#}3{#/blank#} the tent, I went out with diary in hand. The sky was clear with the bright moon, and the walls of the valley looked frightening behind their curtains of shadows（阴影）. The beauty of nature at dusk {#blank#}4{#/blank#} my heart entirely. I took out my pen right away... At that moment, I understood that the beautiful scenery I saw {#blank#}5{#/blank#} was more meaningful than the tiring words that I had {#blank#}6{#/blank#} in my diary. Since then I have {#blank#}7{#/blank#} only to keep a special thought or feeling in my diary. The unforgettable moments I {#blank#}8{#/blank#} would be the sweet and lasting memories for my life.

Touring Cenotes

    My parents and I traveled to Mexico to visit my grandparents last summer, and we visited the cenotes (say-NO-tays), the natural swimming holes located on the Yucatán Peninsula. The term "swimming hole" might make you think that cenotes are just average, but cenotes are truly {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. I had the most exciting experience of my life exploring these wonders of nature.

    Thousands of years old, the cenotes formed and created sinkholes underneath. Though the ancient Mayans (玛雅人) used the cenotes as water {#blank#}2{#/blank#}, people can now swim, dive, take photographs, and admire local trees and {#blank#}3{#/blank#} life, all through water as clear as liquid diamond.

    In Cenote Azul, my parents, my grandparents, and I swam through water that seemed too blue to be real. I {#blank#}4{#/blank#} countless younger kids diving into the water from a small cliff, but I dared not to jump at first. I finally worked up the courage, and my {#blank#}5{#/blank#} try instantly put all my worries to rest.

    A few days later, we went to Cenote Ponderosa. We stayed in the sun-covered pond, where we {#blank#}6{#/blank#} floated while others did diving and took underwater photographs. Being surrounded by a valley of trees made everything else in the world seem to disappear.

    Grutas de Loltún were definitely the most magnificent of all the cenotes, even though there was no swimming involved. Grutas are caves, and the Grutas de Loltún are among the biggest caves on the entire Peninsula. Our guide, Carolina, walked us through several caves, where we saw many drawings thousands of years old on the cave walls! Just one brief look at those drawings made me feel like I had stepped back in time to a(n) {#blank#}7{#/blank#} era of history. Our group thought Carolina was joking when she claimed she could make the stalagmites(石笋) sing for us, but when she {#blank#}8{#/blank#} them, we heard what sounded like the words "Lol" and "Tun"—the name of the caves! I cannot imagine that a(n) {#blank#}9{#/blank#} played at a concert at Carnegie Hall would have been any better.

    Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula is filled with beauty, but the cenotes are a one-of-a-kind opportunity to commune with nature in a way that is impossible anywhere else on Earth, and I would not {#blank#}10{#/blank#} to do it all again.

    When Marco Polo was 17 years old, he travelled {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Europe and Asia with his father, who wanted to do trade with the Chinese. And {#blank#}2{#/blank#} they arrived in Beijing.

    Marco was amazed by how beautiful and powerful China was. He was impressed by Beijing and the Emperor's palace. He was surprised to see Chinese people using paper money in the markets because he could not understand how people could pay for food and valuable things with paper! He was also {#blank#}3{#/blank#} by the black stones people used to burn for fuel. The black stones were coal, but Marco had never seen it before.

    Not long after his return to Italy, a local war {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. During the war, he was caught by the enemy and put into prison. Another prisoner, who was an author, took {#blank#}5{#/blank#} while Marco told all his stories about China and wrote the stories in a book called The Description of the World.