Guatemala is an incredible country for so many reasons. As well as all the history that fills the land, the country is also home to some of the most beautiful beaches. In fact, it can be tough to choose just a few with so many on offer.

El Paredon

Many of us love to get out on the water and take in the waves. If you know your way around a surfboard then look no further; El Paredon could be the beach for you. However, it’s thought the waters are better suited to experienced surfers rather than beginners.

Playa Tilapa

Playa Tilapa is filled with a sense of calm. The waters can be perfect for anyone looking to try their hand at surfing while the relaxed atmosphere from the fisherman means there are often plenty of fresh catches up for grabs for any passing trade each day.

Iztapa

This small port town was once used as a harbor to sail to Peru. However, it has since quietened down leaving the beach yours to explore. Thankfully, the open waters make Iztapa one of the perfect places in the country to sit back and catch some fish.

Monterrico

This is a favorite beach amongst locals as Monterrico is perfect for catching as much of the Guatemalan sun. Plus, the sand can offer the ideal place to relax after a long day. Just be careful swimming in the sea as there are strong currents and no lifeguards.

Champerico

Social media can help advertise many idyllic locations, and the wooden pier at Champerico is no exception. As well as getting the chance to snap a shot for yourself, this beach is ideal for anyone wanting to enjoy some sunshine while sticking with the relaxed feel of the country.

Punta de Manabique

Punta de Manabique has been a protected wildlife reserve for the last 20 years thanks to the number of forests and rainforests in the area. This means anyone wanting to take a closer look at nature can do so from the comfort of the beach as they enjoy a trip to Punta de Manabique.

There are many incredible countries, and it looks as though Guatemala didn’t even have to try to stake its claim for some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. Perhaps it’s time to grab our surfboard and swimsuit after all?

Life is full of happy accidents. Some of them have even changed the world. The following mistakes were made while inventing or looking for new ways to solve problems in the world. Though they were accidents, many of these have become things we use in our everyday life or medicines that have helped improve the lives of millions. Most people have no idea how many of these happy mistakes we take for granted. We thought we would take a look at inventions that changed the world but were made by mistake. Keep reading to find out what tools, food, and medicines fall into this category.

Headaches can be annoying, if not debilitating, and an Atlanta pharmacist in 1886 was trying to solve this problem. John Pemberton was working with two ingredients to do this – cocoa leaves and cola nuts.

One day, the two were mixed with carbonated water by accident, and the result was the bubbly refreshment we all love to have with our burgers – Coca-Cola. Though he didn’t create a cure for headaches, he certainly changed the world.

A little divine inspiration is to thank for the creation of those lovely, little, multi-colored, sticky notes. An employee at 3M took a substance that he thought was useless to help him find his place in his hymn book.

Attaching the sticky substance to a bookmark and using it to help him find his place during choir practice turned into a million-dollar idea. Someone saw this, thought it was a great idea, and the Post-It has now become a thing of everyday use.

Corn Flakes are the cornerstone of many people’s breakfasts across the globe nowadays. Keith Kellogg loved helping his patients with their diet, and this is what is behind the invention of corn flakes.

The doctor left some bread out overnight. Not wanting to waste it, he decided to bake it anyway. When he gave it to his patients, they liked it, and corn flakes became a staple of the most important meal of the day for decades to come.

“This bread sure tastes sweet!” These were the words that heralded the discovery of the first artificial sweetener, saccharin.

Constantine Fahlberg was working in the lab of John Hopkins University and needed to take some work home with him to get all caught up. Then, while eating, he noticed a sweet taste to his bread and realized that some of his work had gotten on the bread. This finding would be the base for all the artificial sweeteners to come for years.

It’s so sticky! This next invention is one that has saved many people from conversations with loved ones about how that coffee cup or vase got broken, but even super glue was the result of what its creator thought was a failure.

Harry Coover, a doctor, was working on several experiments in 1945 when he created a substance that stuck to everything. The doctor deemed it a failure but would later realize it could be used for many things.

The Slinky may be simple, but it is fun, and we have a mistake to thank for it. An engineer named Richard James was working on creating an extra-sensitive spring for ships and their equipment.

As he was working on this, one of those springs fell off the table and just kept on going. Immediately, he thought this would be a great toy, and that is how the Slinky was born.

Stainless steel is used in many industries, as it is a steel that resists rust. This accidental creation was only partially a mistake. The creator, Harry Brearly, was attempting to create a barrel for a weapon that would be able to stand up to the elements and not corrode.

Finally, by accident, he found the right combination. The big surprise was that it needed to have a small percent of chromium mixed in with the steel.

Driving our vehicles in intense weather conditions would not be the same without this amazing and very accidental discovery. In the 1830s, Charles Goodyear, like many others, thought that rubber was unable to take extreme temperatures.

However, he thought there might be a way to solve this problem, so he began experimenting. One of his mixtures accidentally spilled on the stove, but he noticed that it didn’t burn. From this kitchen mishap, we got vulcanized rubber.

This colorful modeling toy has helped children make their imagination reality for decades, and it was all a pure accident. The creators of Play-Doh, Joseph and Noah McVicker, were working on creating a way to clean wallpaper, but they came up with something very different in the process.

The mixture they put together didn’t quite work to clean wallpaper, but it was moldable. Less than a year later, the duo sold their invention to Rainbow Crafts, and Play-Doh became something that every child would play with.

Accidents sometimes breed the best discoveries. That is probably what a graduate student of chemistry probably knows now. While working on a project with a silicon chip, there was an accident, and the chip shattered.

However, the student quickly realized the pieces were still emitting signals. This technology heralded something called smart dust, which is used in the treatment of tumors today. The dust is sent in to attack and destroy tumors, so this mistake has saved many lives.

Safety glass has saved many lives, and those lives would have not been saved if it wasn’t for a happy accident in a lab in 1903. Scientist Edward Benedictus was hard at work in his lab one day when he knocked a beaker over.

When he rushed to check on it, the glass had not broken. This intrigued him, so he looked at the vessel closer. He realized it hadn’t broken thanks to a coating of cellulose nitrate. The discovery brought us the safety glass that has saved so many lives.

Kids who are working to learn how to tie their shoes often wear shoes with Velcro straps. This invention is also used in many other areas, as well, but the creation of this amazing fabric was made by pure accident.

Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer, happened to notice his pants were coated with little fuzz balls. Then, when he looked closer, he realized they clung to anything. He recreated the structure, and Velcro was born.

There have been many types of “gum” through the centuries, but what we call gum came about by accident in the 1800s. An inventor in the United States, Thomas Adam, Sr., was attempting to create the rubber and stumbled upon the chewy substance.

The inventor was working with chicle to try to create a rubber substance, but instead, he created a substance that could be chewed. The use of chicle is where the gum brand gets the name Chiclet.

Non-stick pots and pans are a necessary tool in every kitchen, but the compound used to create them – Teflon – was a byproduct of another project. Roy Plunkett, a scientist working for DuPont, was tasked with making refrigerators safer.

To do this, he was looking to get rid of the refrigerant needed for the appliances to run. While doing this, he observed a substance that seemed to be smooth and heat-resistant. The chemical compound would go on to be named Teflon.

Everyone has their ice cream preference when they are asked for a cup or cone, but there wasn’t always this option. In fact, until the early 1900s, ice cream was only ever served in a dish. The cone was actually created out of necessity.

At the St. Louis World Fair of 1904, the ice cream stand ran out of dishes. Then the man at the stand next to them, Ernest A. Hamwi, thought it might work if they formed waffles into cone shapes. Smart idea!

Bored and sitting at his desk, Walter Hunt, an inventor, was fiddling with a piece of wire. This fidgeting would accidentally create an invention that would help keep notes from your teachers attached to your shirt and so much more.

As he fiddled, he realized that one end was able to be held and released by the other end. In 1849, he patented the safety pin.

The inventors of bubble wrap made the product on purpose, but the end-use became vastly different once it was created. Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes engineered bubble wrap as a new wallpaper.

It didn’t work out in that aspect, but as a form of packing material, it excelled. Along the way, they also tried to suggest that it would be good as greenhouse insulation, but even with that, the two eventually realized it would be best used as a way to protect things during shipping.

When you have a severe heart attack, you may have a pacemaker placed in your chest to help you in the future. The creation of this life-saving tool happened by pure happenstance. Wilson Greatbatch was working on building something to record heartbeat sounds.

Reaching back, he grabbed the wrong transistor. Upon turning his contraption on, he realized it sounded like a heartbeat of a human. From this, he developed what we would later call a pacemaker.

Microwaves are in almost every kitchen nowadays, but if it hadn’t been for a chance observation, they may never have been invented. Percy Spencer, an engineer who worked for Raytheon, noticed that his candy bar melted when he walked by a magnetron.

Thinking about this, he soon realized that it radiated heat and that he might be able to harness that power. Just a few years later he had completed his new invention…the microwave.

It can be very frustrating for a chef or cook when someone keeps sending their food back, but sometimes, this creates an inventive solution that changes the world. This is what happened to George Crum, who was a chef.

A customer sent their friend’s potatoes back several times, saying they were not crispy enough. Finally, the chef cut some potatoes super thin and fried them in oil. The customer loved them, and so do millions of people today, as these were the first potato chips.

No big celebration would be the same without the colorful explosions in the sky that are produced by fireworks. Even these were created by accident, though. More than 2,000 years ago, a Chinese cook combined sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter.

When he lit it, he noticed it burned well and then exploded. After a little experimentation, this mixture would eventually be compressed into bamboo tubes, and fireworks made their first appearance.

Few smells make more people happy than freshly baked, warm, chocolate chip cookies. These sweet and delicious treats were made for the first time by mistake, though. The owner of an inn (The Toll House Inn) was baking chocolate cookies and ran out of baker’s chocolate.

Mrs. Wakefield then decided to break up some semi-sweet chocolate. After all, it would melt in the oven, right? She mixed it in, but when the cookies came out, the chips hadn’t fully melted. Thank goodness, because otherwise, there would be no chocolate chip cookies.

Nitroglycerin is a highly volatile compound, and back in the day, many people were working on how to stabilize it for use in many ways. One of them was Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel.

He wanted to stabilize the compound so that it could safely be stored, but as he transported it, he saw that it had soaked into the packing in the box. This accident allowed for the observation that soaking something with the compound would allow for safe transport and storage. From this, TNT or dynamite was created.

When it gets hot, the sprinklers come out and so do the popsicles. Summer wouldn’t be the same if it hadn’t been for a little boy and his forgetfulness. Frank Epperson was 11 years old in 1905 when he created the sweet summer treat.

After leaving powdered soda water in a cup with a stick on the porch in the middle of winter, Frank returned the next morning to find the concoction had frozen. He called it an Epsicle. 20 years later, when he took this treat to the public, he dubbed it a popsicle.

Trying to find an alternative to shellac brought us one of the most used compounds in humankind…plastic. Leo Baekeland, a Belgian chemist, was working on the problem in 1907 when he noticed something.

The mixture of formaldehyde and phenol, heated and combined with a few other ingredients, created a substance that could stand up to heat and was able to be formed into shapes. He called it Bakelite, but it would come to be known as plastic.

Nachos may not be a cure for diseases or something that will save someone’s life or help them make a chore easier, but the creation of this delicious entrée certainly changed the world. In 1943, Ignacio Anaya, a maître d at a restaurant in Mexico City, would accidentally make a dish that would become a staple of Mexican cuisine.

In an effort to feed a group of military wives, he threw a dish of tortilla chips and cheese in the oven and called it Nachos Especiales.

Matches have been very helpful in many ways throughout the decades. As you may have guessed, though, we would have never had them if it hadn’t been for an accident.

In the early 1800s, chemist John Walker scraped a chemical-coated stick of wood across a hearth, and it flamed up. This initial discovery was dubbed Walker’s Friction Lights. These variations of matchsticks were made on cardboard, but that eventually changed to wood and sandpaper.

While looking for an energy source for his experiments, French scientist Henri Becquerel accidentally discovered something that would be used for both destructive purposes and medical purposes, respectively.

Wrapping his photo plates and placing them in a drawer along with some uranium crystals, he was set to get a big surprise when he revisited those plates. Without any energy source, the crystals expanded, and radiation was discovered. He didn’t follow the discovery up with more tests, but others sure did.

Worcestershire – that zesty sauce we all put in our meatloaf and on steaks – was a pure accident in the beginning. After spending time in India, Lord Marcus Sandy was at a retirement home and began craving a very special sauce he had previously enjoyed.

To quench his craving, he employed two drugstore owners to recreate the recipe. Unfortunately, they created a very pungent mixture. To keep the smell down, the two put it in the basement where it aged for a few years, and voila, Worcestershire sauce.

Many people use Scotchgard to protect their shoes from water and oils. Their shoes would be in a world of hurt if it hadn’t been for one scientist’s accidental discovery of the compound that makes the product work.

Patsy Sherman, a scientist who worked for 3M, was working on creating a rubber that would be able to stand up to exposure to jet fuel without rotting away. Instead, she found a waterproof mixture.

One of the most popular stories about the creation of tofu includes a mistake while creating the staple soy treat of many Asian cuisines. The story takes place in ancient China, where a person was boiling some ground soybeans.

They accidentally mixed in some sea salt that also contained calcium and magnesium salt. The mixture caused the soybean paste to congeal together. If that mistake hadn’t occurred, vegans and vegetarians across the globe wouldn’t have this product that is necessary to get their protein.

Dry cleaning is important for a lot of people to look professional and sharp at their jobs. On top of that, there are now fabrics that are dry clean only, and that would never have been the case if it hadn’t been for one guy in the clothing industry and his maid.

Jean Baptiste Jolly was sitting at home when his maid knocked over a kerosene lamp. Jolly soon realized that the heat of the lamp on the tablecloth cleaned the fabric. This led him to discover that heat could clean clothes, and dry cleaning was invented.

Cheese puffs are a common offering at parties, but without a major mistake, we would never be able to enjoy the cheesy goodness. On the other hand, white couches everywhere would still be safe from cheese stains.

In the ’30s, Edward Wilson ran a company that produced grains for animals. He noticed that the workers used cornmeal to reduce clogging in the machines. When it was spat out, it puffed up in ribbons. He took it home, added oil and seasoning, and the first cheese puff was born.

Vaseline can be used to help soothe burns and heal cuts, but we wouldn’t have this household product if it wasn’t for a young chemist. After petroleum had been discovered in a small town, he wanted to see what it could be used for.

While checking out the drilling site, he saw some of the workers using a substance created by the process on their skin. He then realized this could be used on a wider stage, and that accidental observation became Vaseline.

The original patent for tea bags was filed in 1901 by two women, but many say that the modern version of this product didn’t come about until seven years later when a tea merchant tried something new.

Thomas Sullivan wanted to send some samples out and decided to place the tea in silk bags. Instead of people taking the tea from the bag, they just dropped the bags in hot water. The modern tea bag came into being through miscommunication.

If you have ever had a procedure or surgery but have not felt any of the pain that comes with it, you have a lot to thank doctors in the 1800s for. Back in the day, they would use alcohol to dull the pain for severe medical procedures, but at some point in the 1800s, that changed.

Several doctors realized that there were certain chemical compounds (gases, in particular) that numbed the pain or knocked the patient out so that they didn’t feel the pain. Anesthesia changed everything and has saved many people a lot of pain.

X-rays are used in many ways to help diagnose problems, and the invention of this technique certainly changed the world. However, they might not exist if it wasn’t for a physicist’s alertness and a pure accident.

In 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen, a German physicist, was working on a cathode ray tube experiment. As he was doing this, he noticed that a piece of fluorescent material was lighting up from clear across the room. After more work and experimentation, X-rays were developed.

Many people have used Botox for cosmetic purposes, but it is also used for migraines, as well. Neither use may have been discovered if it hadn’t been for a stroke of luck. In the ’80s, an ophthalmologist in San Francisco was trying to treat crossed eyes.

Unfortunately, he didn’t find a new treatment for this, but he did find a compound that had a very unique effect. Botox lifted and tightened the area around the injection, and he thought this could be useful.

For decades, kids have had fun with Silly Putty, but we would never have had all of that fun if it hadn’t been for an accident. During the Second World War, a scientist named James Wright was working on crafting a synthetic rubber.

By accident, he dropped some boric acid into silicone oil. Once the two compounds had merged, he noticed that the resulting product had some bounce to it. Later, Peter Hodgson would use it to create Silly Putty.

Malaria is a horrible disease, and before there was treatment, it ravaged many countries (and still does). One of the treatments of the disease is a drug called quinine, and it was allegedly discovered by chance.

Suffering from the disease, it is said that a native Indian in South America drank some water and cinchona bark together. He began to feel better and shared the concoction with other people. The choice of that specific bark, which would become the main ingredient for the anti-malaria drug, was just a happy accident.

Diabetes is a disease that affects a person’s body’s ability to handle sugars. The disease itself and the medicine used to treat it were both accidentally discovered. In 1889, two scientists removed a pancreas from a dog. Later, they noticed that when the dog relieved itself, flies gathered around its waste.

Sugar caused the waste to be heavy in sugar. After noticing this, Joseph von Mering and Oscar Minkowski studied the pancreas and found that the body produces insulin and that instability of insulin is what causes diabetes.

The fashion industry would be very different if there were no synthetic dyes, and we have a scientific mistake to thank for the wide range of colors we are now able to use in fabric dyeing. In 1856, William Perkin, a doctor, was working on trying to find a medicine for malaria.

During one of his experiments, the compound he was working on formed a thick purple goo. The doctor was able to separate the pigment, and he called this mauve. This was the first artificial dye.

Laughing gas is used as an anesthetic in many medical areas, including dentistry. The discovery of this gas and its uses was made by accident – sort of. In 1799, a doctor was curious about what the gas would do if inhaled, and with that curiosity, he found a tool that would be used for centuries to come.

Testing the gas on himself, he noticed it gave him a euphoric feeling. He then realized that there was practical use in helping people avoid pain during medical procedures.

Kevlar protects military and police forces across the globe. This extra-strong fabric wasn’t intended to protect people, though, but was actually the byproduct of trying to create lighter but stronger tires.

Stephanie Kwolek was a chemist working at DuPont on this project, but as she did her experiments, she created a light fabric that was five times stronger than steel, This fabric would later be named Kevlar.

Penicillin is a vital medicine that helps our body fight off infections. If it hadn’t been for Alexander Fleming, a Scottish biologist, we may never have discovered this life-saving medicine.

The bacteria he had been running experiments on had taken a turn for the worse and had begun to die. When he looked closer, he realized there was a fungus growing on the bacteria that was killing it. That fungus was penicillin.