31. March 2015

I posted a blog of some of my favorite non-student photos from trip on my personal photography blog and would like to share the link with you. Many of these photos haven't been shared publicly before. Enjoy! http://bit.ly/19tGu7V I have also attached a screen shot of a map of our travels based on the GPS tagging of the photos I took on the trip. ~Adam

28. March 2015

Now that we are on our way home we wanted to give some conversation starters for the parents. We know that middle school students are not always forthcoming with information. And we know that students never respond to the question "How was school" with "fine". Hopefully, students are excited enough about the trip that stories and information will flow freely. In the rare chance in doesn't here are some good conversation starters. What were your initial impressions of Ecuador as the plane was...

27. March 2015

It has started to sink in for us on the trip that our time in Ecuador is coming to an end. While we are excited to get home to see family and friends most of us if given the chance would extend our trip for a few more days. So today for our blog we have decided to write a short reflection about a memory that we want to always remember about our time here in Ecuador. Enjoy! ~Adam

26. March 2015

Today we have a few posts from some of the boys on the trip. As you will read they are much more brief and to the point than our previous bloggers. Also, they don't like being thirsty or stinging jellyfish. Read for yourself:

25. March 2015

I would say that today was a day that students have been looking forward to for a long time. We finally made it to the beach! After four hours of driving from Guayaquil we stopped at a shopping center and a local fruit market to buy food for a picnic lunch at Los Frailes beach - a national park in Ecuador. Most students skipped the lunch and went straight for the water. We all had a blast floating in the Pacific Ocean and body surfing the waves. As some students would say it was a bit "salty"....

24. March 2015

Ecuador update #5 Today was our longest day of the tour so far - we left the hotel right after breakfast and arrived at the hotel tonight after 9:00pm. It was packed with fun experiences and learning. We started off the day heading to a school on the outskirts of Guayaquil. At the school students performed cultural dances for their parents and for us. After the dancing we played soccer against the kids from that school and it didn't go well for us. We got beat pretty handily. Afterwards we...

23. March 2015

Wow. This entire trip has just blown my mind. First, the people are so incredibly nice and cheery. They are super optimistic about literally everything. Yesterday, 2 of the groups played soccer and freeze tag with some of the local children while the others played the Ecuadorean version of volleyball and got free avocados. With total strangers! But, it was the most meaningful thing, in my opinion, that has happened. It really just showed me that these are people too. They're just a little...

22. March 2015

Today we started off bright and early from Quito, Ecuador to head to our next stop in the Cotopaxi province, where we would get to see the active volcano, Cotopaxi. We loaded up onto the bus at 8:30 to drive a little over an hour to the national park. On the way we stopped at several scenic overlooks to get pictures of the landscape, but we had a couple of awesome surprises! Cotopaxi almost always has some sort of cloud cover obscuring the top half, but today it was mostly clear and we got some...

21. March 2015

We were all up bright and early for breakfast this morning at the hotel. We had sausage, eggs, cereal, croissants, and an assortment of juices. Our tour guide Luis met us in the hotel lobby at 9am to tell us about the day ahead. We got on the bus and traveled close by to the old city Quito where we visited three different churches that date back to the 16th centuty: The basilica of Quito, Santo Domingo and San Francisco. We were given an extensive tour of Santo Domingo where we saw some amazing...

20. March 2015

After what I would call a uneventful trip we have arrived safely in Ecuador. All of us students and chaperones are super excited to be here and as we landed all eyes were glued to the windows to get our first sights of the country. We took a 35 minute ride from the airport to our hotel where we were able to see some of the countryside and outskits of Quito. Once we arrived at the hotel we were able to check in and rest for a few minutes. We then took a walk to a local super market to buy water...