by Sarah Ruehl
Three months is a very odd length of time. In the grand scheme of things, three months is a blink for mother Earth, Pachamama. Even for us mere humans, three months is 1/400th of our lives, considering we live 100 years. Yet, looking back on everything I did and learned with these thirteen strangers in the last three months, it’s hard to believe it hasn’t been three… Read More
A day for Emily:
Snuggled up under my wool blanket, I am awoken by my host family chatting away in Hindi. I open my eyes and absorb the soft glow of the pre-sunrise light and take in my surroundings: the small mud patio I am sleeping on and my host brothers Lalito and Rukase coming toward me to say good morning. I get out of bed and am greeted wit… Read More
In our final week of our long journey through the South Pacific, we were lucky enough to stay on the Hart Family Farm and spend time with our amazing hosts Greg, Rachel, their kids George, Bill and Emma, as well as their four dogs. This week was a real eye opener for many of us, learning a lot about the way we make and consume food and how unsustainable this… Read More
Friends & Family!!
The trip may be coming to an end, but the adventures are definitely not winding down quite yet. Before coming Whenua Iti Outdoors, we spent a day wandering around the cute city of Nelson, full of shops, good restaurants, and lively atmosphere. Typing from personal experience, it’s a great place to shop for things you definitely don’t have any room for.
Our first day at Whenua Iti,… Read More
Sarah Spirek here! As our semester comes to a close, I just wanted to write a few closing comments for our trip. We have all learned so much, some of it we won’t even realize until we get home. We have built a little family within our group and have suffered the loss of three of our members. We have spent the last three months learning, growing and experiencing the… Read More
We spent our last week in Costa Rica at KUEMAR, a turtle rescue project. It was hard work, but it paid off with our once in a lifetime experiences! Every night, we took shifts at neighboring beaches where we patrolled. We saw our first adult sea turtles and got closer than we could ever imagine with them. We watched them as they scooted their way out of the water and… Read More
Written by Maya
Hello friends and family! As we head into our last week we are feeling very bittersweet. We are all very excited to go home and get to sleep in our own beds, and simultaneously sad that the semester is winding down and we have to end our adventures together.
Last week we spent 7 days meditating and doing yoga at the Phool Chatti Ashram, outside of Rishikesh.… Read More
Written by Adalyn
A few weeks ago, Owen bought a razor to shave his head. After Leighton agreed to help him, they went to the roof of our Ouarzazate apartment and engaged in a shaving war that we now call “The Buzzing.” Many of us still don’t understand exactly what happened on that rooftop, but we do know that, later that night, half of our group arrived at dinner with… Read More
Katie and Charlotte on what it like to teach in a small village in India.
Katie- This last week we got to spend our time working at an all girls school outside a small village. The school provides free schooling for over 500 village girls who would otherwise not get a chance to go to school. Everyday we taught different classes in English and got to play and run around… Read More
Over the course of the last week Hongi 2018 had the privilege of learning from and living with the Maori people. My main takeaway from the experience is that people are amazing. I have always admired people because I think the things they do are incredible, but this week I felt like I was just in continuous awe of how this culture lives. We arrived in Ragland (or Whāingaroa as… Read More
Written by Adalyn
Chapter One:
The story begins with the Flowy Pants Patrol (FPP) roaming the streets of Tarifa, Spain in pursuit of— you guessed it— flowy pants, an article of clothing that is not only culturally appropriate for Morocco but also exceedingly comfortable. Emily, Leighton, and I wandered into a small boutique, where the FPP made its first purchase. I bought a pair of lightweight, loose, red pants— a… Read More
In the past week we all worked diligently to earn our PADI open water scuba diving certification. The first two days were split between learning scuba skills in the classroom and in the pool. We were enthusiastically taught by our energetic instructor, Rob. Rob is an experienced diver and clearly loves what he does. From the moment we met him outside our hostel in Cairns he was full of energy,… Read More
Sailor and Sarah here! Our group spent the last week volunteering at a permaculture farm called CIRENAS. Due to a recent donation, they were able to build a hatchery and start up a turtle conservation project which we had the opportunity to work on. Our roles included exhuming nests that had already hatched, recording data and patrolling the beach. Most of the group took the opportunity to take a shift… Read More
Kia Ora everyone!
This week us Walkabout students were in full control. It was student directed travel! With the budget that we were given, we were able to pick the places we went, the activities we did, the food we ate, and the hostels we stayed in. We started off the week by taking a ferry from the North Island to Picton on the South Island. From there, we hopped… Read More
Written by Eli and Lily
After our amazing home stays in Uwembe Village the group began student directed travel. With several weeks of stressful preparation we were finally on our way. A decision was made to make our way back to Iringa where we spent two nights. Whilst in Iringa we swung by the cinema to watch The Nun and The Spy Who Dumped Me. We woke early after the… Read More
Coming to you live from Cuzco, Peru… It’s Liam Thrun! So first things first I just wanted to say thanks to Patrick for wishing me luck on this task. I will be blogging to you all about our Student Directed Travel! To kick it off, we traveled around 12 hours from Cuzco to Arequipa (thanks to Yola). During the ride, we watched Point Break for the 3rd time on our… Read More
After the trek we quickly came back to civilization. We had a long travel day to Amritsar where we stayed for two days. We explored around the Golden Temple and visited it. We had some bougie Kulfi (indian ice cream) in chocolate, almond, rose and pistachio and mango flavors and a delicious dinner. The next morning we tried to bring our bags to spend the night at the Golden Temple,… Read More
The group had a wonderful week at CIRENAS, learning about sustainability, permaculture, and turtles! A few photos from their adventures, with more updates to come:
Kaylee wrote an article about their time there that was published in the CIRENAS newsletter:
Working with baby turtles!… Read More
