Hola amigos!
Matt and Mara, this Fall’s Quetzal OEs, coming at you from Carpe Diem HQ in Portland, Oregon! We are incredibly excited for the upcoming semester and all the adventures that await us all. Our days at training have been filled with rich conversations, planning time, and plenty of laughter and games. We have been enjoying this time to reconnect with the greater Carpe community and prepare for the… Read More
Hello parents and students alike from Forrest and Stace, Carpe Diem’s Fall 2022 Hawai’i OEs!
We write to you from Carpe Diem staff training in sunny (for the most part) Portland, Oregon. Here we find ourselves working to put the finishing touches on our upcoming adventure together, getting to know each other better, as well as relaxing, recharging, and having some much needed fun!
With just under one week until… Read More
Hello parents and students alike from Megan and Adam, Carpe Diem’s Fall 2022 Italy and Greece trip leaders!
We write you from Carpe Diem staff training in sunny (for the most part) Portland, Oregon. Here we find ourselves working to put the finishing touches on our upcoming adventure together, getting to know each other better, as well as relaxing, recharging, and having some much needed fun!
With just over one… Read More
Written By Gracie, Latitudes Year ’22 Peru
I started my semester on February 21 in Cusco Peru, at Pachananda retreat
center. I started my first few days acclimatizing to over 11,000 feet. I am from New York, so the first culture shock was most definitely the difficulties breathing. For my first week I drank chlorophyll in my water to help oxygenate myself and increase my red blood cell count. Such… Read More
Written By OEs, Soumya & Ryan
To our lovely readers who have followed along all this way, gracias! It’s your favorite OE team, Soumya and Ryan, despidiendonos from the sweet concrete jungle that is San José. Yesterday, we said our final adios to our Carpe crew who have been our family and friends for the last three months (complete with obligatory and very fashionable white bucket hats). As we close… Read More
Written By OES, Ryan & Soumya
The final week of the semester was one for the books on the Osa Peninsula. It started with an epic boat trip there along the Sierpe River
We arrived to the beautiful Drake Bay which offered daily opportunities for beautiful sunset swims
But the real reason we came was for diving!!!
The peninsula is one of the last protected wild rainforests in all of… Read More
Written By Erin & Jane
Buenos dias todos!
With less than a week less of this epic adventure, let’s look back at what the previous week brought!
We begin at the lovely permaculture farm, Villas Mastatal, and learned about the importance of working with the earth’s ecosystem, how to make compost, and how to plant almond trees, while getting to experience the power of Costa Rican rain storms!
Next it’s… Read More
Written By Flannery, Latitudes Year ’22 Peru
I started my time in Lobitos with three goals:
1. Become conversational in Spanish
2. Learn to surf a short board
3. Make one good friend
Not only were all three of those accomplished with surprising success, but the community of Lobitos (or as I like to call it, Loveitos) revealed to me hundreds of unexpected gifts.
Working with Waves for Development has… Read More
Written By OEs, Mara & Cahill
Hey Campers. This wild ride had to come to an end at some point, turns out that was last week! This time spent learning from our numerous kipunas, our crash course in living a life filled with kupono, and singing our oli everywhere we went cannot be summed up with words on a screen. To all those reading these very words, know that these… Read More
Written By Wynn & Emily
It’s officially our last week on the program, and by the time friends and family read this, most of us in the group will probably be in the air or already landed at home. It is a very bittersweet ending, with everyone sad to say goodbye and also excited to see their loved ones again after seventy days. The past week was very full, with… Read More
Written By OEs Rachael & Adam
Greetings Terra family, friends, and fans! This is the final blog by your OE’s Rachael & Adam. It has been an honor herding your kiddos through airports and train stations for the last couple months! We have shared many a laugh, lots of gelato, weird dance experiences in a yurt, some tears, and met and loved many donkeys along the way.
We started in… Read More
Written By Riley
START
It is raining outside. The campfire is smoldering. Two of us help our Irish contact, Colm prepare breakfast in the outdoor kitchen. The rest of us sit on the outside tables, in the yurt, or huddled around the campfire, waving off the smoke. We eat delicious chestnut pancakes (made with Paladini’s own supply of chestnut flour), scrambled eggs (not without lack of eggshells), and Colm’s delicious… Read More
Written by Hunter & Maddie
Hello friends! Hunter and Maddie here for the weekly blog We started the week off in Turrialba finishing up our Spanish classes.
Mastatal represents one of our final weeks here in Central America. For most of us, the past 3 months have represented a time of hardship and new experiences, and from that, a time of growth. Everyone here has learned and grown whether it… Read More
Written By Gigi & Delia
This week Mara and Cahill were dismissed from scheduling obligations and joined the chicken ranks for our student led travel week! Dun dun dun!!!! Destined to be the most chaotic but definitely not lacking in fun, we started our week by wrapping up our time in Miloli’i. The group participated in a town hearing to push forward legislation proposed by the village to protect 18… Read More
Written By Kaeley, Latitudes Year ’22 Dominican Republic
Hello all! The last 2 months I’ve spent in the Dominican Republic have been a blast. Can’t wait to share with you! I am staying in the quaint ocean town of Bayahibe, and through Carpe Diem have been diving with Coral Point Dive Shop. On a typical day I go on 2-3 dives starting early in the morning, then go home to… Read More
Written By Mackenzie, Latitudes Year ’22 South Africa
So what have you been doing in South Africa? This is a loaded question that I have been asked more and more recently, so here is a blog to depict what my last 2 months at Dreamcatcher have consisted of. So what is Dreamcatcher? A better question is what isn’t Dreamcatcher. Their mission is “…to actively pursue mutually beneficial, responsible tourism, knowledge… Read More
Written By Jane and Elliot
Hello and welcome back to your favorite blog. This weeks installment features the thrilling adventures of the most lovable student group living out their self proclaimed travel dreams. That’s right, we planned everything from volcano climbing to relaxing on the Caribbean. Using boats, cars, airplanes, and our own feet, we have truly traveled far and wide this week.
While our student directed travel started in… Read More
Written By Riley
Ciao!
This week the group got a healthy mix of suburban, urban, and then rural living, as we moved from the suburbs of Florence, to central Florence, to our current camping spot in Garfagnana.
By last week, each member of our group had gotten the chance to step into the role of group leader and so the group devised a council system to equally split up group… Read More
Written By Gus, Latitudes Year ’22 Thailand
Hello, My name is Gus. I have been living in Thailand for just over two months as an intern at CORE sea. We work Wednesday through Sunday, so we have Monday and Tuesday as our weekend. A normal work day starts with a group meeting at 9 a.m. in the classroom. Stefan and Vicky (our bosses) brief us on where we are diving… Read More
Written By Lana & Luke
To begin the week, we said goodbye to Pineapple Park Hostel, heading south of Kona. An hour long drive and serene views took us down to Miloli’i, the last fishing village on the island of Hawai’i. We arrived to a barren landscape of jagged lava rocks, all of which formed from Mauna Loa erupting one hundred years ago. The change of scenery was drastic. Dry,… Read More
