Written By Catie & Andie This week we stayed at the wonderful Bambu Guest House in Tzununá. Although we missed our homestay families from last week in San Juan, everyone was very happy to once again be sleeping under the same roof. We have a gorgeous view of Lake Atitlan and the mountain ranges surrounding us. On clear nights, we have even gotten to see El Fuego volcano erupting in… Read More

Written By: Alissa and Rachel Buenos dias from San Juan! Rachel and Alissa here to share with you the adventures of the week! We left Antigua on Monday morning and drove to Lake Atitlan. We got to enjoy a lovely boat ride across the lake to the vibrant town of San Juan. From here, we met up with our welcoming homestay families and went to see our new homes for… Read More

Bathed in sunshine and surrounded by impressive volcanoes, Antigua, Guatemala has served as our introduction to Central America. Laughter, exploring the city, trying new foods, playing games, sharing life stories, and orienting ourselves to our three months in Central America…our first few days in have been jam-packed with activities. Although it’s only been a few days, our group has started to take shape and inside jokes have already started to… Read More

We’re happy to report that the MAYA group has arrived safely in Guatemala! After their overnight flight, they are tired but excited for the semester to come. They’ve checked in to their hostel in Antigua and had their first Guatemalan breakfast. They are going to take some time to rest and recharge now before diving in to the rest of their orientation. Stay tuned as they will start posting updates… Read More

The MAYA group has gathered in LA and are getting ready to head to Guatemala! They are happy to finally be together and looking forward to the journey ahead. Stay tuned, as we’ll post another blog here tomorrow once we’ve heard that they have lande and made it to their orientation site in Antigua. ~Team Carpe… Read More

Hola. Matt and Suzannah here, hard at work, getting ready for our upcoming semester. We are less than a week away from beginning our journey together. We hope everyone is stoked for: tortillas, volcanos, turtles, camionetas and Spanish. Enjoy your last few days before departure and we look forward to seeing you soon. Hasta la pasta.… Read More

Hello friends and families! This is Matt and Rachael, your OEs, writing our final semester blog post from the tropical paradise of Roatan, Honduras. What a 3 months this has been! The time flew by and sometimes crawled. It feels like we have known each other forever and also like we were meeting in LAX yesterday. It is going to be strange breaking up this little family at the airport… Read More

Written By Rosalie As I’m writing this, we are heading into our final week together as a group after nearly three months of travel. Tomorrow, we leave Costa Rica, and I have to say that our last week here has been one of the most impactful, at least for me. Despite the many giant spiders I encountered and then willfully tried and failed to ignore (they remain seared into the… Read More

Hiya everyone!! Its Sydney Lou Who here, writing with the unsolicited help of Rachael and Hayden. Last week we spent 5 days working at the turtle project in the Nicoya Peninsula with Eduardo and Mancho and a host of others that included a group of German volunteers and Brazilian volunteers, so we took the opportunity to make lots of friends and annoy more people than just Matt and Rachael. We… Read More

After our six week adventure in Guatemala, we were finally able to make it to our first week in Costa Rica. Our first stop in this small Central American country starts in a small city called Turriabla. Smack dot in the middle of Costa Rica, Turrialba offers a whole variety of fun things for the gang to do. For the past few days the group has been obsessed with eating… Read More

Written By Lucia Hello! Lucia here with what we’ve been doing for the past two weeks. First we spent a week in El Paredon where we worked with La Choza Chula, a sustainable development organization dedicated to improving the community of El Paredon. They funded a school and they provide employment to many people in the community by offering tours around different parts of El Paredon. La Choza Chula gave… Read More

Officially one month in! We left Chico Mendez last week for our three day trek to the lake. It was a challenging trip but everyone worked really hard and it was also lots of fun. It was so rewarding to look up at a mountain knowing we had just climbed it that day! On the last day, we got to see an amazing view of the sunrise over the lake.… Read More

Hola everyone, Hayden here, writing about our time in Quetzaltenango! (If you can’t quite say that you can call it Xela instead) We’ve spent the last week there, in the second-largest city in Guatemala and the home of the biggest parades and parties in the whole country (according to the locals). The focus of the week was practicing Spanish one-on-one with the great teachers at PLQ, but we also had… Read More

Hi everyone! This is Molly and Rachel signing in. We spent this past week at La Escuela de la Montana, a spanish immersion school in a rural village in the mountains of Guatemala. The group was split into two groups, one with classes from 8am to 12pm and the other with classes from 1pm to 5pm. The classes were one on one and we ate our meals with host families,… Read More

We have all arrived in Guatemala, staying at the beautiful Earth Lodge near Antigua. We have been spending a lot of time getting to know each other, playing games, and learning more about the program. yesterday we went on a short hike and got to see an amazing view of the mountains and volcanos. Some of us got up early to see lava coming out of Fuego, one of the… Read More

Hola Team Maya! This is the first post on the blog we will take turns writing for throughout the semester. The blog is a way to let friends and family know about our adventures, share experiences, opinions, and some photos. This is Rachael and Matt writing from Portland. We are in the midst of training and prepping for our trip. We spent last week camping, doing team building activities with… Read More

By Rachel and Sarah First week in Costa Rica! We had a pleasant early morning flight last Sunday and a short bus ride to the city of Turrialba. Meeting our host families created some anxiety as always but has greatly paid off this week. We feel we have made great connections with this group of people! We began our last week of Spanish school on Monday and we feel our… Read More

By Sarah and Madeleine Howdy from your southern belles, Sarah and Madeleine! We arrived in Flores Wednesday and met our contact Deiter who gave us some introductory information about Flores and the week ahead, then had free time. Some of us swam across the lake while others enjoyed immersing themselves in local culture by eating at Pollo Campero. On Thursday we toured the Yaxha ruins and camped overnight in tents.… Read More

Walking up through the jungle to the site. Climbing one of the steep pyramids. We made it to the top! Learning from our guide Dieter about the history of the site. Taking a closer look at how the temples were built. The Mayans would add one staircase on top of the other to add height to their structures. Watching the sunset from the top of one of the pyramids. The … Read More

By Nico & Sophie Hey everyone! We just finished up a beautiful week on the beach in the small village of El Paredon. We spent our time with an organization called La Choza Chula, a social enterprise focused on providing educational resources to the people of El Paredon. Throughout our time there, we participated in a variety of workshops based on the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development. This included… Read More