Follow the Journey

Greetings from Nicaragua!!!We arrived in the extremely hot city of Leon Sunday afternoon. The flight was rather short and we were all very excited to arrive in a new country. It was only a short busride from the airport and we learned that this part of Nicaragua is surprisingly less mountain filled than Guatemala. almost all of us are in doubles this week so we settled into our last homestays… Read More

Last Saturday we went on a 40 kilometer hike from Xela to San Marcos. It took 2 and a half days. We carried our big packs with us and it was extremely challenging for all of us. The first night we slept at a campsite in tents. The next night we slept in an empty house that the trekking company supplied for us. The third morning we woke up at… Read More

Happy 19th Birthday Brian. Here’s wishing you a great year and many happy adventures to follow! Love, Dad, Pam, Carlie, and McKenzie… Read More

HOla from Xela! Today was our last day at Casa Xelaju. Tomorrow we are headed to San Marcos for a week of yoga and meditation. Before we get ahead of ourselves, we must talk about the past week in Xela We enjoyed a nice day of shopping in Chichistenango. As you can see in the picture below, we took a chicken bus for transportation. We shopped for a while on… Read More

our wonderful leaders!lexi, lauren f, brian, heather, hannah, and kelly in the hot springs!lauren w and griffin in barrio ixobel (old picture but griffins smiling!)… Read More

all of us on emily and lauren fs bed at a hostel in chichi!adam, kelly, brooke, emily, and brian after volunteering at la pedrera. a nice view of xela!… Read More

A few more photos for all you wonderful blog followers…. The cloud forest was so beautiful… the little house is where we stayed. The Chicken Bus ride back from chichi….so many people on the bus!! The Dude Shack in the cloud forest…Brian, Griffin, and Adam The group at Tikal on top of one of the temples! From L to R: Lexi, Griffin, Hannah, Brian, Brooke,Emily, Lauren W, Kelly, Adam, Lauren… Read More

Hey everyone!Hope you liked the pictures, there are more to come.Uploading is easy this week because we are staying in the second largest city in Guatemala, Xela. There is a gorgeous central park and tons of things to do everyday. Everyone is living in a homestay again, some farther then others, but all the families are great.Daily life in Xela goes a little something like this: school starts at 8:00… Read More

Ariel view from samuc champay, where we went last weekend for the dayHiking to the Cloud Forest (from left to right griffin, brian, kelly, emily, lauren f)Climbing to the top of one of the temples at Tikal!Sitting inside one of the Mayan ruins at Tikal (lexi, lauren f, emily, and brooke)Our whole group in a cave at barrio ixobel! ( top left to right: brian, heather,… Read More

Dear mothers, lovers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors and beloved pets, Greetings from Coban! We are staying in a Hostal tonight and taking a lengthy bus ride to Xela tomorrow morning, but, lets not get too ahead of ourselves here. You must know about last week first! We left San Andres for Coban last Sunday. We stayed in the same Hostal we are staying in now, it is very clean… Read More

Hola everyone! We just finished our first week of spanish school and we all learned a lot! Most of us had our own teacher, and all of them were great. We spent 4 hrs each morning at the school and spent the afternoons swimming in the lake, or doing various activities. We took a boat trip into Flores to shop on thurs. and stopped at a small museum on the… Read More

Grettings from San Andres, Guatemala. We arrived in the very hot town of San Andres yesterday after a week full of Guatemalan traditions, holidays, parades, pageants, and costume contests. The week started with carnivale where we were all covered in flour and confetti thrown on us by the local children. The next day was a mardi gras parade where we were once again attacked by the children. On friday it… Read More

Hello everyone, We have had a very eventful last few days here in beautiful Guatemala. On saturday we took a 2 hour hike into the hills, mountains, jungles, and every other imaginable terrian and arrived at a cave. On the hike to the cave we were attacked by a chacha bird and it felt like it was a scene straight out of Jurassic Park and the chacha was a Velociraptor.… Read More

Hi everyone!Its Emily, Lauren, and Hannah. We are in the village of poptun in guatemala doing a scavenger hunt (like the others below said) It took us a while to get to here but we made it! Even though were all sweaty and not very clean were excited to be here. We´ll post again as soon as we canhasta luego… Read More

Hello everyone this is Brian, Lexi and Kelly. We are on a scavenger hunt in Poptun, Guatemala. The place where we are staying is amazing and wonderful. We are all looking forward to a lovely lagoon swim later after a very long trek today. In case you did not know a basura is not just a garbage it is also a landfill…we were able to find this in the mountains… Read More

Hola amigos y familia!Lauren F, Brooke, and Griffin here! we are currently on a scavenger hunt in a local town. we have had a wonderful time sofar at finca ixobel, relaxing, bonding, and preparing for our trip. the walk here was supposed to be 40 minutes but due to directional difficulties we went on quite the adventure through the town basura, aka the dump- the elephant graveyard… well not elephants… Read More

I just received an email from Heather and Adam that the group’s officially touched ground at Finca Ixobel, the site of their orientation and also the group’s first real solid ground since taking off in SF! In Heather’s words the leaders are typing from “the Flinstone’s original computer” so don’t expect any contact from the students until tomorrow at the earliest 🙂 Yours, Ethan… Read More

I just got off the phone with our fearless leaders and everyone has safely arrived into SFO and are with their group! … that’s right, everyone! Despite snow on the East Coast, several frazzled flight rearrangements and one delay, the group is successfully united! Stay tuned as another blog gets posted from Finca Ixobel during their first stop for orientation. Yours in spirit, Ethan Knight Executive Director… Read More

Hola otra vez! 5 Days until we meet in SFO… We will be meeting in front of the TACA airlines counter in the international terminal at 8:30pm on Wednesday, Feb 10th. We know many of you have flights that get you in well before 8:30pm, but just in case you are running late or can’t find us, please call 1-877-285-1808. This is a Carpe Diem office number that will be… Read More

Hola and greetings from Carpe Diem HQ in Portland, OR. We are both very excited for our upcoming adventure – with less than a week to go before we meet in SFO, we have been working hard with final preparations and packing, as we imagine many of you are doing as well. We will be calling you all in the next few days before we leave, to chat a bit… Read More