Written By Emma Emma here! We have safely landed and have been spending our first four days in Chilamate at the amazing Chilamate Ecolodge. On day one, we flew in to San José around 11am Mountain Time. We drove for one hour through the beautiful Costa Rican landscape, with cliffs of green, and lush mountains intertwined with clouds. We stopped at a remote local comedor where we started our journey… Read More

The QUETZAL group has arrived safely in Costa Rica! They are on their way to Chilamate, where they’ll settle in to their hostel and start their orientation. They’ll post an update here on Monday to let us know how their first few days in Costa Rica went. Pura Vida QUETZAL!… Read More

Our QUETZAL group is all together! Everyone has arrived safely at the Hilton Newark Airport Hotel and they are settling in, starting to get to know one another, and eagerly anticipating their departure to Costa Rica tomorrow morning. We’ll post another blog here tomorrow afternoon once we’ve heard that they’ve arrived safely in Costa Rica. Let the journey begin!… Read More

Hola Grupo Quetzal & friends & family! This is your Overseas Educators, Rachael & Ryan, writing from Portland, OR where we are in the midst of training. We started out camping with the other OE’s and HQ staff at the gorgeous Trillium Lake under Mt. Hood where we spent a lively and lovely couple days getting to know each other, learning about Carpe Diem stuff, swimming in the lake, and… Read More

By Anya and Doug Hola Jimmy, Katie, Bradley, Jillian, Jake, Toe, PJ, Cate, Juancho, Anna, Dylan, Ellie and Maggie!! Well, here we are, lying in hammocks overlooking Taganga bay in Colombia thinking back on our wildly successful three-month adventure. We are overwhelmed with feelings of love and gratitude as we think about our group and all of the fun times we shared this semester. You all each brought so much… Read More

By Jimmy and Jake Hello to every one of our blog readers, it’s Jimmy and Jake blogging here and we would like to inform y’all about all the fantastic activities and other experiences we had during the past week. Our journey during the past week started in the large and historic capital of Guatemala, Guatemala City. We entered by microbus coming from our fulfilling week at El Paredon, but we,… Read More

Last Wednesday we left Antigua. After a short two-hour van ride we arrived in the tranquil beach town of El Paredon. Our week in El Paredon was organized by a social enterprise called La Choza Chula. La Choza Chula is helping El Paredon through a recent increase in tourism. They are providing knowledge and help with sustainable ways of education, enterprise, and environmental protection. We stayed in an awesome hostel… Read More

By Jon Hey, Jon here covering part two of our “Escuela de la Montaña” adventure. Big thanks to Dylan for part one. Give the man a Pulitzer, 10/10 writing. Anyways, let’s hop right into Thursday, November 9th, 2017. As it’s been explained, we had been split up into afternoon and morning classes. Now, there were two planned times for groups to go the local Mayan SHAMAN at a town called… Read More

By Dylan Crovo Sunday morning was spent in Xela (pronounced shay-la); like any other morning spent at 8,000 feet in Guatemala, the day broke shockingly cold. Shivering despite my poncho, an impulse purchase made at one point or another by every member of the group, I arrived at Xela’s central park. In the mere 10 minutes it took for the rest of the group to arrive at the park, looking… Read More

By Jake Anquillare and Anna Parker ¡Hola! Es Jake y Anna aqui estamos veniendo de Xela, Guatemala ahora. Pero antes de nuestro viaje nosotros tuvemos un noche al hostel de Costa Rica. For all you amateurs out there we will break it down for you. Early Thursday morning we caught a ferry from the Nicoyan peninsula to Puntarenas and began yet another travel day. When we got off the ferry… Read More

By Anna, Bradley, Doug, and Anya Anya babysitting on a bus. Bradley in his happy place. Cate and Jimmy birdwatching. Cocos! Costa Rica cooking class. Costa Rican sunset. Quetzal dance class! Dylan and Jillian. Ellie, Maggie, and Cate. Cate, Maggie, Anna, Anya, Ellie, Katie, and Jimmy enjoying la playa. Gallina wranglin’. Jake and Cate. Jimmy getting in on the fun. Juan milking a cow! Cate and PJ. Katie and Anna … Read More

By Bradley Sabbar and Jimmy Toole After five days at Cirenas, we said goodbye to our gracious hosts and embarked on a two-hour trek up the beach to arrive at our next homestays. The route was treacherous, with many obstacles such as rivers and jagged rocks. Alas, we finally arrived at the homestay pick-up point. The group then split up into four separate homestays. All of the boys (minus Jake)… Read More

By Ellie and PJ Photos courtest of Anna Parker Greetings. This is your latest correspondence from ya girl Ellie and PJ, aka El Jefe. Our week began this past Sunday with a summit up the nearby volcano Maderas. While it is the shorter volcano on Ometepe Island, the hike proved to be no easy feat. Katie and Anna were both not feeling too great health-wise, so, unfortunately, by the time… Read More

By Maggie Otal and Jillian Doyle (the NoVa girls) Photos courtesy of Anna Parker Our week began with a ferry ride to the island of Ometepe. The boat ride didn’t seem too long but by the look of the sunburns and chaco’s tan lines you would think we sat in the sun for hours. When we made it to the island, all 15 of us decided to have lunch at… Read More

By Dillan Crovo On Wednesday, we finished up the bathroom construction in the morning. After lunch, I took a short, but much needed, nap. The group broke roughly in half; some chose to make soup, either driven by an enthusiastic appreciation for the culinary arts and how it pertains to soups and broths or perhaps more likely deterred by the looming storm clouds and the promise of rain. Others—spurred on… Read More

By Jon Frey We arrived at the cooperative in Peñas Blancas on Sunday, unpacked, and immediately dove into meetings, and then painting murals. Our new member, Jake, joined us during the meeting of the community and he was instantly part of the family. These murals, once finished, were to go to families in the community to signify that those families are open to house tourists in homestays. At the “art… Read More

By Tori Graffius So far we’ve been here for a week and I can already tell that this adventure is going to be the best adventure of our lives! We have an amazing group of 12 students and two instructors and I’m excited to see where these next three months takes us! Every day has been very eventful, with group bonding activities, Spanish classes, tons of walking, and delicious food… Read More

By Anna Reed We embarked on our journey, starting with orientation. The moment we all sat down together, a sense of relief fell over all of us when we realized how amazing each individual in our group is. Everyone brings something unique to the group in light of our diverse backgrounds. Jon’s personality radiates positivity and he has been kind enough to share his love for music with the group.… Read More

By Cate, Jillian, and Jon So far Nicaragua has been a blast. The traveling day was long but since we got here, we have been having a lot of fun getting to know our fellow group members and going through orientation. This country is beautiful and we are all so excited to be here. One of the best things that we have done so far was going to a cool… Read More