Blog from Grace. Photos from Jon & Anya
Finishing our week at SECMOL was bittersweet. The school itself was so interesting how it taught students from various villages not only school, but how to sustainably live off the land in an eco-friendly way.
The cultural exchange between the students our age was fascinating to experience. During conversation class, which was a 15 minute talk between a student and volunteer, about… Read More
Blog from Rachael J.
As I’m on my bed that is closer to the floor than I expected at SECMOL (The “Student’s Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh”) where I’m trying to string together the many similes so the reader can actually feel what I am talking about. I try to think of an onomatopoeia that distinctly describes the many noises or the lack of noises that I hear while… Read More
Oh hey! The Shanti family has just spent the last week as members of the Dharmalaya Institute for Compassionate Living, in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Alessandra here writing to you from an internet cafe in McLeod Ganj; what Dharmalaya lacked in internet, it more than made up for in spectacular mountain views. Under the wisdom of our new friend, Mark Ji, we learned about the incredible institute he founded… Read More
Blog from Reed & Max. Photos from the Overseas Educators.
Greetings from the town of Njombe in South Western Tanzania- It has been an adventure filled week since we last touched base so we have a lot to share and will do our best to keep it nice and short although there are no guaranties.
When we last touched base we were part-way through our Kiswahili school and homestays up… Read More
¡Adios Ecuador!
After a great stay in Pucará, getting to know the local community & natural environment, and planting enough trees to offset the carbon footprint of our carbon footprint of our Carpe Diem trip, we departed for Junín. We all boarded onto the back of Don Fausto’s open top truck for the final time and we were taken to a trailhead.
Our suitcases were shuttled away as we headed… Read More
This week was a very eventful and exciting week. We began on Monday by traveling from Matagalpa, Nicaragua to the island of Ometepe. We left nice and early at 8 AM and took private transport to the beach town of San Jorge. During the four hour van ride, we slept, listened to music, talked and eagerly awaited our arrival in San Jorge. When we got to San Jorge, we ate… Read More
Yes, it’s time for the weekly team Chango update. After a wild week of going with the punches for independent student travel, I think all of us were a bit relieved to have a set schedule again in the heart of a beautiful farming town.
And although the churros here are ten times the price of the churros in Santiago, I still can’t complain because there is something so sweet… Read More
After an exciting week full of turtles and sleep deprivation, we packed our bags and caught a bus back to San Jose for the night. We stayed at Mi Tierra, a local hostel, and because of the size of our group (a whopping 14 people) we had the whole place to ourselves!
The next morning we swapped tires for wings and flew to Guatemala City, Guatemala. The view from the… Read More
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This week has been crazy hectic between jumping off a ten hour train to Ayutthaya, bicycling around the city, then heading to Bangkok for three days where we got to witness the people’s reactions to the king’s death firsthand. Every single citizen in the city is dressed in black to show they are mourning. We stumbled upon a mourning ceremony devoted to making sure… Read More
Hola!
Following Ezra´s last post of our time in San Juan Del Sur, we took a bus from San Juan to Rivas, then waited a while for another bus, which then took us across the border (long process of getting on and off the bus about three times) and into Costa Rica. Once across the border, we bussed for the next 4 or so hours and arrived in San Jose.… Read More
Hello family, friends, and all peoples who have come to this blog. It is I, Caden,
your guide to all things about our tour of Cuba. Last week in our travels we were in the
city of Santiago, known for its rebellious history, Afro-Cuban culture, and being really,
really hot. After the excitement of Hurricane Matthew, and the disappointment and relief
that it didn’t hit, we got settled in for… Read More
Adios Student Directed Travel! Let’s take a moment to admire how much ground we covered, meals we ate, places we stayed, and the people we’ve befriended along the way. Go Hongi!
Now moving on. Our new host, Tiaki, took us to a retreat cottage. Upon arrival he introduced us to Rob, an elderly man you could just look at and tell he was filled with wisdom. We helped him cut… Read More
Our Pun Pun experience started out by walking on a dirt path surrounded by soil bringing life to the Earth and trees blossoming on the mountains. Soon we were enthusiastically greeted by the community at Pun Pun, including the volunteers from around the world and the locals. Once we arrived at our charming mud house, we felt the weight of our 65 Liter backpacks lift off our shoulders. We also… Read More
Arriving at 9:00 Am, Mategalpa tours took us in a van up to the cloud forest 40 minutes away. Our guide walked us through the lush forest full of insects, and birds we never saw but heard because of the thick canopy shading us from the world above. Every animal camouflaged in their own unique way, every organism coinciding with the habitat surrounding them. We then took some silent time… Read More
Greetings from Kolkata, or Calcutta for anyone who took highschool geography before 2001. We sincerely hope that our blog is allowing all our readers to vicariously enjoy India. My name is Nate and this week I’ve been tasked with adding a little bit more to the story. It’s been a fast and furious week for the Shanti group. Last you heard from us we were attempting to attain enlightenment for… Read More
“This is one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been” – Hollyn
¡Bienvenidos a Pucará! For the past 5 days, we’ve been spending our time in the beautiful subtropical climate known as the cloud forest. We’ve been staying individually with host families, and spent two of our days volunteering and helping with reforestation. We were able to see the whole process of making coffee all the way from picking the… Read More
