Hello family and friends of the Spring 2014 South America group!
And they’re off! The whole group met this morning at the LAN counter in LAX, and there was an excited energy, filled with hugs, handshakes, smiles, and laughter. All together for the first time, they proceeded through security to begin their journey to Quito.
We are sending lots of love and well wished to our South America crew and… Read More
Hola Amigos!
We had an amazing day biking around Portland on this very brisk and wintery day (it snowed this morning!) completing a scavenger hunt, burning some calories, enjoying our final days in the United States, while savoring incredibly delicious food, and capping it off with bowling and getting psyched about our upcoming trip to South America! It’s happening!
This blog is the place where YOU will share our adventures,… Read More
Dear friends and family,
I wanted to start this entry with “As our trip comes to an end…” or perhaps “As our journey winds down…” Maybe if I was feeling especially poetic, I might begin: “As the curtain falls on our Latin American adventure…” BUT how can I truthfully write about the end when all the faces and laughs and peanut butter memories keep playing through my head. We’ve been… Read More
Whats good family and friends,
This past week or so we have been hiking along the Inka Trail. We passed through snow topped mountains, incredible waterfalls and then descented into the subtropical rainforest where we saw a coffee demonstration and saw all the flora and fauna of the region. We summited a mountain and saw Macchu Picchu face to face and tomorrow we are climbing up there to learn about… Read More
This morning we returned to Puerto Maldonado via three hour boat ride after an amazing week.
We stayed at a guest house called El Gato (named because there used to be a lot of panthers in the area) run by a family who has lived there for quite a while. It is the last community before the Tambotata Reserve- a huge preserve that is almost entirely untouchable land. During the… Read More
Hello family and friends!
After an amazing week in Cuzco we are headed into the Amazon for a week to do conservation work. It was a rough ride getting to the town we will depart from on a 5 hour boat ride to get into the Amazon. There was a spontanious hail storm that started right as we were leaving our hostel for the bus station in Cuzco and two… Read More
Querida familias y amigos,
After a full 24 hours of travel, we triumphantly arrived in Cusco, Peru on Saturday afternoon. Our hostel is run by the one-and-only Mamma Cusco. She wasted no time with pleasantries and wrapped each of us up with a big hug and a smile, calling us “mi amor,” and ushuring us to come sit down and eat. It must be exhausting to pour so much maternal… Read More
Just in case any of you are interested, here’s the link to the google album I post all of my photos from the trip. Uploading is sporadic, and I still don’t have everything from the beggining up (as internet speeds are very slow here) but there are a fair amount up for your viewing pleasure.
https://plus.google.com/photos/104932745759355222923/albums/5933659783766729089?banner=pwa&authkey=CM6IjIa-gNqPyAE… Read More
The week of Free Travel:
After two weeks, we left Arequipa last Saturday. We had an excellent time in the city, learning Spanish, talking with our homestay families, and enjoying our first stop in Peru. But eventually, it was time to go.
This time around, we travelled in (relative) style, chilling on the top floor of a double decker bus. After ten hours (mas o menos) of bus travel, we… Read More
hey yall,
We’ve been in Arequipa for about 11 days now and have a had a lot of fun. We all met our awesome homestay families and have been having fun with them frequently. For the weekdays, the group is split in two. One group learns spanish while the other helps out this cool dude Rick out at the orphanage he started here. Last week the group at the orphanage… Read More
African dance lessons, surfing, delicious burritos for only two fifty, bonfires on the beach, baked treats, a sweet hostal, and sleep. These were some of the great experiences we had in the small fishing village of Mompiche. As of four years ago there was not even a road to the village the only way to access it was by boat. We arrived early Wednesday morning and all crashed after a… Read More
Hey there adoring fans,
After gorging ourselves the past week on Coconut cookies, Galak (aka – greatest vanilla butter cookie sandwiches ever), and every other pre-packaged treat we could find, a gross dull stomach ache began to seep into the group. Why can’t we avoid these gelatenous treats, these potato chips, these short-sighted hunger solutions? Eventually, some group members said “Enough,” and a running bet began to see who can… Read More
Here’s the dance we did as a goodbye: From Carpe Alternative Link: https://plus.google.com/photos/104932745759355222923/albums/5933659783766729089/5935747105827943970?banner=pwa&authkey=CM6IjIa-gNqPyAE&pid=5935747105827943970&oid=104932745759355222923
(I have no idea if either link works since the computers are too slow to load the video)… Read More
Day: October 4th, 2013
Location: The city of Baños, Tungurahua, Ecuador
Activities: Canyoneering and saying goodbye
Hello friends and family, and welcome to the first of several time traveller’s logs! We will be experiencing the past lives of us Carpe Students, but don’t worry, our presence won’t interfere with the space time continuum.
First thing we do today is go to an adventure clinic, where we suit up for our… Read More
We have officially left the cloud forest community of Pucara, and are residing in Mompiche, a beach town, before our exodus to Peru. Over the next week or so we will be making blog posts detailing what we did in the “lost weeks”.
In Pucara, we worked with the resident Carpe Contact, Pete, who educated us on sustainable agriculture and reducing our carbon footprint. The entire group with Petes property… Read More
Hello all,
I am posting from an internet cafe near Pucara. Sorry this will be a really short post but I want all to know that there is no internet in Pucara, so we most likely wont update until Monday when we leave Pucara. However, that is the begining of group directed travel which, depending on what we decide to do, may or may not allow for internet access! Updates… Read More
Hello friends, families, and loved-ones,
This week we have been living in the beautiful city of Baños! The city is surrounded by mountains and a semi-active volcano. PLEASE NOTE: semi-active means that you cannot go all the way to the top because the volcano can spit out small amounts of lava at times but it is not a threat to us nor does this happen often. That said, some people… Read More
