The week of Free Travel:
After two weeks, we left Arequipa last Saturday. We had an excellent time in the city, learning Spanish, talking with our homestay families, and enjoying our first stop in Peru. But eventually, it was time to go.
This time around, we travelled in (relative) style, chilling on the top floor of a double decker bus.
After ten hours (mas o menos) of bus travel, we… Read More
Greetings from all of us here in New Zealand! We just finished up with our tough but rewarding week at Blue Mountain Adventure. (BMAC) During our time there we all become stronger as a group and as individuals. Throughout our trip Lord Of The Rings has been an ongoing interest due to how incredible it is and the fact that it was filmed in New Zealand. As a result our… Read More
Arrival in Kigali. We touched down in Rwanda at around 8-8:30 AM local time after having a very early start to our travel here. Our first plane from Dar left at 5 AM, so we were up and ready to go at 3.. We had two short flights, with a leighover in Nairobi, Kenya. Right off the bat, Rwanda was a great place for me to practice my French, although… Read More
When I was younger, people used to ask me what it was like to have special needs brothers. Some people would even ap0logize, as if their presence was a burden on my life. I never really understood it. To me, they have always been perfect. I think it took me a very long time to even realize that there was something different about them. So yes, they might not have… Read More
When our group arrived at Zuni, we immediately went to the museum to meet with Jim Enote, the man whose land we were going to be staying on and who would be hosting us for our time on the Zuni reservation. After a fantastic tour of his museum as well as getting to learn of the Zuni origin story we were allowed to see a ceremonial dance before setting off… Read More
Hi world! We are in Guatemala! It´s really quite exciting to have yet another new country to explore. (: We said goodbye to Camaronal, Costa Rica and our precious sea turtle hatchery. We took a nice bus about 5 hours to Alajuela (just outside of San Jose and the airport) and stayed in a backpackers hostel for the night. We found our new European style home exceeding our expectations. Rustic… Read More
Hey everyone!
We just got back to Iringa after our 3-day safari with Warthog Adventures at Ruaha National Park. The experience was amazing, and we were able to see the “Big Five” (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino). We’re moving on to Mufindi Orphanage tomorrow, so look forward to seeing some great safari photos and hearing about our time at the orphanage in about 10 days!
-Becca… Read More
Greetings all! Becks here with the weekly update! Right now we’re in Wellington exploring the city and preparing for free travel. We just finished up at the Blue Mountain Adventure Centre (BMAC)! Dan and Meghan, our activity leaders, lead us through some awesome activities this past week!
BMAC is in the small town of Raurimu right on the edge of the Tongariro National Park, so our first adventure was trekking… Read More
Namaste family and friends!
We have just arrived in Rishikesh in time for Diwali after an amazing two weeks of exploration in the Himalayas. We started out in Gangtok, the beautiful capital city of Sikkim, at a lovely homestay nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. We spent our mornings taking long uphill walks to the Serenity Home to volunteer with men recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. We all… Read More
Since we didn’t have the world’s most interesting week (and we know that you all depend on us for your weekly dose of excitement), we’ve decided to spice this blog up with short bios of everyone on the trip, so you have an idea of who all these people are that we talk so much about.
In no particular order, here are the members of Carpe Diem Nkula, Greta and… Read More
Hamjambo, Marekani!
We are currently in Iringa, celebrating the one week anniversary of our arrival in Tanzania. We flew from Kigali to Dar es Salaam last Thursday, stayed the night in Dar es Salaam, and then took the world’s hottest and longest bus ride to Iringa, a city in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. Although apparently no one on the 9 hour bus ride to Iringa wanted to open their… Read More
Here are several photos from our stay in Varanasi. They are the burning ghat, the sunrise over the Ganga, Paffy and I on the boat, and our fire dancing instructor Krishna in action!… Read More
I heard the clean snip of the scissors and gazed up into the mirror of the barber shop into the eyes of a tall, cheery Indian man. With sparking eyes, and eccentric smiles, he and Payton held up my pony tail. Ten minutes later, I was officially bald…
Namaste family and friends!
Megan (the recently bald group member) here. This week was as fast paced and hectic as ever. We… Read More
hey yall,
We’ve been in Arequipa for about 11 days now and have a had a lot of fun. We all met our awesome homestay families and have been having fun with them frequently. For the weekdays, the group is split in two. One group learns spanish while the other helps out this cool dude Rick out at the orphanage he started here. Last week the group at the orphanage… Read More
Here’s the Thanksgiving story (October 14th):
Starting the day, Jack and I woke up and our homestay mother put us right to work. We were sent to the ‘shamba’ (farm field) to clean up the old corn stocks. Mama John (the homestay mother) gave us Djembes, a gardening tool much like a hoe, and told us to chop down the old dried-up stocks. We worked for about half an hour,… Read More
Hi all! Maya and Shane here, recapping on this past week. As we write this, we are sitting in the common area at Project Bona Fide, a farm dedicated to the diversification and availability of plant species in Nicaragua. The common area is completely open, and overlooks the lush jungle/farm, as well as the lake that could most certainly be mistaken for the ocean due to its endless horizon. We… Read More
Well it’s now almost November and the brief sleet storm which just hit us in Cornfields on the Diné (pronounced “Din-ay” and the more polite name for “Navajo”) Reservation is a definite testament to the oncoming winter. In the past couple of weeks, we have travelled from Diné College to Canyon de Chelly and to Ganado and Cornfields, two of the 126 chapters which make up the Diné Reservation.
Our… Read More
Rock Gardens near Morogoro
Getting the Fish’s eyes ready to eat! (Yum)
Liam and big big fruits
Siafu! (ants that CAN and WILL eat you.)
Stranger Danger (Siafu)
Kellie and Amanda teaching the locals how to make peanut butter cookies!
Foggy mornin’ hen keepin her chicks warm
Liam helping Msafiri prepare for his national Math exam (Mufindi Orphanage)
Zaoda on the swing that Liam and Kulywa fixed at Mufindi
Zaoda… Read More
