Saying Adios to “The Bathrooms”

Archive South America- INTI
It’s that time of the trip… leaving one city and moving on to the next! Today was our last day in Baños (yes, we are aware that this translates to the word “bathrooms” in English, but it is named Baños because of the hot springs there which are like one big bath tub!). This morning (Friday) we took a bus at 4am and headed back to Otavalo where we will… Read More

Rising Dust

Archive Indigenous America
Dirt roads and rising dust initiated our 4th week of the Indigenous America semester.  We arrived into a beautiful canyon called Dove Springs were we spent a week with a Navajo family, Tim Johnson and his wife Belinda.  They welcomed us into their home and we immediately began chopping wood and digging up posts for a new sheep enclosure. Having spent the past two weeks assisting in the building of… Read More

Darjeeling Unlimited!

Archive India- SHANTI
Hey everyone, this week it’s Tully taking a turn on the blogging rotation! I’m so excited to share with everyone our awesome time in Darjeeling and on to Kolkata! After finishing our trek and saying our goodbyes to Sikkim and the wonderful people we met there, we spent a day driving down to the plains of West Bengal, a 6-hour ride. We got settled in Hotel Tower View, which was… Read More

Homestays

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
Hello everyone! The group is now back in the town of Njombe after a successful weekend with our homestay families. Everyone enjoyed their time with the families- doing chores and playing with kids. On Sunday everyone got dressed up and went to church together, which was an experience I’m sure we will never be able to forget. The whole village was very welcoming and gave us gifts. Saying goodbye to… Read More

Hola, Baños!

Archive South America- INTI
Elena:  Hello from this gem of a city…BAÑOS!  Today marks about a week into our time here in Baños, as well as our 27th day into our amazing South American adventure. ¡Que chevere!   The culture of Baños is of a religious and touristy nature. People come to visit this little city from all around the world, and can be spotted incoming every day by the giant packs on their backs… Read More

climbing the mountains

Archive India- SHANTI
hey all sorry im late ! this week your informant is the lovely and ever dyslexic Ellen Anderson! sense the last blog post so many more adventures have been added to our grand epic, after spending 4 days trek up to Dzongri ! we left Sikkim and our luxurious home stay where we where thoroughly spoiled by Pemma and his wonderful family!! after a long and bumpy ride we found… Read More
Archive Central America- MAYA
  Hello.  It was with weak Spanish skills that I embarked on this trip, and it is with similarly ill-equipped blogging skills that I attempt to succinctly describe MAYA´s experiences over the past few days here in the wonderfully mystifying city of Xela.  Forgive me if my entry lacks the common conventions of a travel blog and contains the occasional Canadian spelling irregularity. Our Tuesday began with Spanish language classes… Read More

Auckland and Beyond

Archive South Pacific- WALKABOUT
Hey everyone, Colin Martin here from the green country sides of New Zealand. We arrived in Auckland on the 10th and left bright and early this morning. While in Auckland we branched out and had a huge amount of experiences: some took a ferry to an island and hiked around for a day, while others took a look around the city and did some shopping in the opp shops(thrift stores),… Read More

Welcome to Auckland!

Archive South Pacific- HONGI
Hello from New Zealand! We have made it safe and sound, despite all the stress of travel. We are so excited to be here, though we do miss our Fijian family terribly. Our last week in Nananu was wonderful: chock full of family time, kava, and mangoes. We spent our days continuing work on the community center (or doing the best we could, the Fijians bested us a bit), with… Read More
Archive Indigenous America
For our second week in Hopi we have been working more with Hopi Tutskwa (http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1678&Itemid=33) on helping to build the cob home for Lillian’s mother Serena.  The walls are going up quickly, especially after we put in the window frames. This past weekend we got the opportunity to visit Roberto and visit his farm where he is doing the permaculture work through the Black Mesa Water Coalition.  (http://www.blackmesawatercoalition.org/) We took… Read More

Jaiho!

Archive India- SHIVA
Updates updates!! I’m sure you’re all wondering why half of our group is now bald, how we’re all coping without our lovely Graham, and where we are in the world now that we’re no longer stationed in McLeod. I’ll start with the hair: Lilly, Graham, Jake, and I (Margaret) have shaved our heads. Lilly was the initiator of this madness, and her excitement to have no hair rippled through the… Read More

Chang Mai to Chang Rai

Archive Southeast Asia- SABAI
Hey everybody! We just finished our home-stays and language classes so we’re on to our next adventure. Currently we are back in Chang Mai, exploring the city, food markets, and attending a Monk Chat. Tomorrow we plan on going white water rafting on some class 4 rapids so I hope everyone can swim!! We leave Chang Mai in a couple days and go to Chang Rai where we go on… Read More

Deer Park visit

Archive India- SHIVA
The mighty Shiva group has left the Deer Park Institute in Bir, after a few meditative days in this peaceful Tibetan colony.  Here the group has learned from the Buddhist and Jain traditions in a retreat setting.  We wish them traveling mercies as they head onward to new adventures.  Carpe Diem also says a fond and respectful goodbye to Graham, who has chosen to leave the program to remain in… Read More

News from the Mufindi Highlands!

Archive East Africa- KIFARU
The Carpe Diem Africa Group has spent the week volunteering at Mufindi Children’s Village.  The activities the group participated in were building a playground with materials we gathered from the area. We cut down some heavy trees and carried them approximately three hundred yards to the work site.  We volunteered at the care and treatment clinic that supports people living with HIV or AIDS.  It was about a four mile… Read More

Final Post from Fiji

Archive South Pacific- WALKABOUT
Hello faithful blog followers! This is Jamo from Michigan here, updating you all on our final week in Rabulu and last few days in Fiji. We spent our 2nd week in Rabulu continuing to work on the cement pathway which we unfortunately did not finish due to the rainy conditions.  On the morning of the 4th we were given a tour of the Fiji water plant which is only a… Read More

Broken Vans & 5 Star Resorts

Archive Central America- QUETZAL
Hey yall. It´s been a trying journey to Antigua but we finally made it.  We were in the car from San Andres for about 16 hours yesterday.  First 2 bridges had construction and we couldn´t pass, so we detoured a few hours, which brought us back to Coban for lunch, after which our van´s radiator overheated. After fixing it using our drinking water we traveled onward until the condition of… Read More

Tikal/San Andres

Archive Central America- QUETZAL
Hey everybody! Our first day in San Andres we traveled to the Mayan ruins of Tikal.  They were extremely impressive and massive.  We saw a lot of unique animals and plants during our hike there. This was also the site of where they filmed Star Wars (the ewok settlement.)  The best part was climbing the highest temple in Tikal.  From the top we could see the expanse of the jungle… Read More