Adventures in the Hill tribes

Hello everyone! We are currently in Sukhothai and enjoying everything that it has to offer. We got here after having an amazing time in the hill tribes. After a day of trekking through the mountians we spent some time staying in a Lahu village. While we were there we helped the community by building three bathrooms and we learned that the Lahu word for hello, goodbye and thank you is… Read More

FairPlay and Cusco!

Hey yo!! Its Andy here. So we´ve been in Cusco for about a week now and have gotten the chance to explore and learn more about the city. Not only have we explored but we are also learning spanish at the same time!! The school FairPlay is awesome. Everyone has a teacher so the classes are one on one. We all had to take a exam before having class just… Read More

Hello Americans

  Greetings from Nicaragua! Since our last post we have been supa busy. From Coban we took a looong shuttle ride, an unexpected boat ride across a flooded city, and one more shuttle before arriving in the city of Flores on the coast of lake Peten Itza. We almost immediatley crashed for the night in a funky, hip hostal.  In the morning we took a nice little boat ride across… Read More

shanti digs deep

From the journals and minds of the young trekkers, I present to you individual “Revelations/inspirations/moments of empowerment” from our hike/bus tour. Brianna H.-wants to expand her eating horizons (unlike her Thai bus-mates who ate pre-packaged Thai ‘catfood’ instead of the freshly prepared Indian cuisine) Erin-Being alone in nature she couldn’t run from her thoughts. This inspired her to be more present with her thoughts in the future and to allow… Read More

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s off to the Mountains we Go!

Dear Family, Friends, and Fellow Readers, After seeing the other eight start their hike towards the massive mountains, Mariah and I began our journey with our contact, Arthur and driver, Snoop Dog towards Ghoom. Ghoom is a city about 8K away from Darjeeling. In Ghoom, we stayed with a man, who usually leads the India Carpe Diem treks, named Raju, his sister, mother, and two nieces. On the way to… Read More

Calcutta!

Namaste! We are now in Calcutta! Much to our surprise, and Jessica and Coby’s surprise, our train didn’t leave till last night. Thankfully, before we headed out for the train station Monday night, Coby read the tickets again! So, yesterday we had another day in Bodhgaya! A day full of Bodhi tree adventures, volunteering at Root Institute, and more great food at Muhammad Restaurant! After our twelve our train ride,… Read More

Trick or Trecking

We MADE IT!! Blair and Rita reporting to all of you folks at home that we actually made it through a 4-day treck on the South Island of NZ. We decided all last minute that we where gonna do the Kepler Treck and it all worked out wonderfully. We spent 4 days trecking up and down the big mountains and it was just about 7 hours of hiking a day.… Read More

It Was Intents

“Did you hear about the circus?” … “It was in-tents” -Simone And now I present to you, devoted blog followers, a reading directly from my personal journal detailing more “intents” events, documented during the hike. disclaimer: please throw grammar to the wind, and enjoy the rugged charm of this raw, ranting journalism. 10/24/2011 4 mi hike. Who carries our belongings? A yak/cow hybrid that is nowhere to be seen. Who… Read More

¡Bienvenidos a Cusco!

¡Hola! It´s Megan blogging from Cusco, Peru. We are finally here and it´s going to be an awesome final stretch! I cannot believe how quickly this trip has gone by. So happy to hear everybody enjoyed the photos from Ecuador! It was not easy uploading them but definitely worth the effort 🙂 Entonces, last week was free travel and we spent it in Huaraz and Trujillo/Huanchao. The terrain here is… Read More

Hello from Bodhgaya!

Namaste everyone! Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Varanasi yesterday. Our last few days in Varanasi flew by, and after our amazing Diwali celebration we truly embraced the beautiful city: afternoons full of sunset walks on the Ghats, visits to yummy cafes in town (indulging ourselves with Americanised sweets and drinks-so delicious!!!!), continuations of our many previous classes, talks about Hindu beliefs and history, body type tests at a… Read More

¡Hasta luego, Ecuador!

It´s Megan blogging from Trujillo, Peru! I hope all is well at home and I miss everybody so much. I wanted to give Ecuador a little shout out before I move on to Peru and have worked very hard to upload all these photos. Enjoy!! (Written on Saturday October 23, 2011) Tomorrow is our last day in Quito and Ecuador. I think I am sad to leave Ecuador. I´ve gotten… Read More

Huaraz

Finally! Free travel! After endless group meeting and discussions we are finally in the middle of our free travel week. We have choosen to go to Huaraz and Trujillo,  Peru. Right now we are in Huaraz staying at the lovely Caroline Lodging. Yesterday we broke up into three groups. My group consisted of Magen, Kelsey and Elta and we went horse back riding. Meghan, Chloe and Helen went to Lagoon… Read More

necklace

¨Look at that young group of gringos¨ He thought, ¨They have some nice looking things.¨ Cars, buses and taxi´s sped in both directions as a group of nine of us tried to cross the street. I could feel his eyes caress my body, I ignored it. Kids yelling, vendors viciously selling, cars honking and people everywhere trying to get somewhere. As Kelsey was getting help down the step on to… Read More

Update of Quito

Greetings its Maleea from the middle of the world! We have spent this week in the capital city of Ecuador, Quito. Every morning we have had one on one Spanish classes, such an amazing way to learn a language! Then in the afternoons we have activities lasting till around dinner, very busy. On Sunday our first day here we all threw our stuff in the Center and headed to a… Read More

SWATDEE KAA!

Greetings from the land of smiles! We just reached the city of Chiang Rai after our relaxing meditation retreat! The resort like “New Life Foundation” welcomed us into their facilities for an eye opening week. Right as our bus pulled up to the center, we had a quick orientation meeting with the manager and some of the residents of New Life and then jumped into our meditation practices. Matthew, a… Read More