PROGRAM PHOTO ALBUM
Thanks for the checking out the blog for this Global Leadership Adventures program!
Here are a few things to know and expect:
- Blog posts are written by onsite program staff and/or students and sent to our Headquarters team who will post the blog on this page.
- We typically receive 2-3 blog updates per week from each program, so please don’t be alarmed if you don’t see a blog post every day – that’s totally normal.
- Blog updates received late in the evening or overnight will be posted the following day.
- Blog updates received on weekends may not be posted until Monday.
- Due to many factors such as internet accessibility, program staff aren’t always able to send photos, so some blog posts may contain text only.
Thank you for your patience and understanding, and we hope you enjoy following along on these unforgettable adventures.
For frequently asked questions about the blogs, please visit our Program Blog FAQ page.
-The Global Leadership Adventures HQ Team
Click here to jump down to the most recent post!
BLOG POST FOR JUNE 27
Hola!
This is your crew from Costa Rica’s Animal Rescue and Veterinary Program (CR AVRP)! We’re back for another AMAZING session with some truly amazing students! With the same staff as session one, we can’t wait to share the awesome activities, service, and excursions the students will get to experience with their families back home!
Today is arrival day! Everything is ready for our students to arrive and start experiencing everything Costa Rica has to offer! Most of the students were picked up at the airport in the morning/early afternoon at San Jose Airport! Some of the students will be coming in later tonight, due to late flight times, and we can’t wait to meet them and welcome them with open arms! Students then took a 2-hour bus ride to the beautiful “Lands in Love”, our all-vegan home base in the middle of the beautiful Costa Rican rainforest! On the way there, we stopped by a Costa Rican Walmart to buy snacks for our two-week trip!
At the home base, students were able to mingle with other students, explore their new home base, and rest/shower after a long day of travel! The students also ate dinner, met the GLA ARVP staff, pet some cute kitties that are an integral part of the hotel staff, and some even played Uno!
Although all of the students shared that they were exhausted from the traveling, they were super enthusiastic and looking forward to the adventure and service days to come!
We can’t wait for the next two weeks of service, learning, lifelong memories, and deep friendships that await.
Again, we hope that you can use this blog to keep up with your student’s adventures and as a way to experience this journey with us! Let Session 2 officially commence!
From the gleefully elated GLA CR ARVP team,
Matthew (International Director)
JuanCa (Local Director)
Anna (Mentor)
BLOG POST FOR JUNE 28
Written by Anja and Karyme:
Hola!
After waking up to two new faces joining us at the breakfast table, we enjoyed a meal of pancakes, an omelet, plantains, and fruit, all vegan of course! The conversation was flowing and chatter filled the room. After only one day, we have all formed a bond that will only grow.
After breakfast, Juan-Carlos joined us in the activity room for icebreakers and games. Orientation followed and we learned the basics of Costa Rica and heard from one of the owners of Lands in Love.
Lunchtime rolled around and we were offered an option of pizza or Chinese fried rice. After lunchtime, there was more orientation and then it was time for the pool. We trekked back up to our rooms, speedily changed, and raced to the pool. Of course, for safety measures, there was a swim test. Thankfully, we all passed!
After a quick meeting with Matt, it was time for dinner and we dined on burgers or pasta with salad. Then we headed back to the activity room and learned some more about Costa Rican culture, food, money, and anything we needed to know from a local.
To complete a fun-filled day, we got our phones back and went to play games and relax before bed.
More to come,
Anja and Karyme
BLOG POST FOR JUNE 29
Written by LOTDs Anja and Karyme:
Buenas noches,
Today we started our morning bright and early at 6:45 am by walking the dogs and cleaning the cats’ cages. Everyone enjoyed helping the shelter for the animals. After our first service, we all felt happy that we were able to assist.
After our service, we had breakfast, which consisted of fruit, french toast, vegan cream cheese, and plantains. The food was delicious! Everyone was enjoying their meal and having conversations that were full of joy.
As soon as we were done with breakfast and the cats, we had free time to do as we’d like. Later in the day, some of us went on a waterfall hike while the rest of us stayed back to go in the pool or relax.
Later on, we met in the activity room to learn about leadership and discussed the day. For dinner, we had lots of options which consisted of pad Thai, burritos, and Israeli food. As soon as we were done with our dishes, we had some free time until our dance lesson began.
During the dance lesson, we got to learn how to dance bachata and salsa which was exhausting, but fun at the same time! To end the day, we received our phones back and headed to talk and relax before heading to our rooms.
Bye for now,
Anja and Karyme
BLOG POST FOR JUNE 30
Written by LOTDs Ava and Annie:
Hola Gorditos!
We woke up at the crack of dawn to walk some muy grande perros. Then we went to breakfast and we had some FIRE hashbrowns and pancakes. We actually ascended to pura vida heaven.
After breakfast, a group of 4 then proceeded to clean chicken coops, while another of 4 cleaned horses, sheep, and goats. The group that worked with the chickens cleaned the coops along with bunny and guinea pig cages. They also replaced the water buckets so that the animals would have fresh scrumptious water. We also got to hold chickens and bunnies!! The group working with horses got hoses sprayed them down and then scrubbed the water off of them so they could be squeaky clean. Also, a blind sheep got shampooed and dried and it was super cute and fluffy.
Then we got to eat a delicious meal cooked by the amazing chef Nama. Then we went into the city and got ice cream at Pops. Me and Ava got the Cono Alien and it was so good. If we had to live on an island alone we’d honestly probably bring my trusty Cono Alien. Very muy deliciosa.
Despues, we walked around and Jaden got Nutella pants and Claire got a Coca-Cola shirt. We then came back to the lovely hotel and we had chow circle and gave some amazing shoutouts to the GOATS of this program. We had dinner and absolutely MUNCHED.
After dinner, we then had our mentor groups with the amazing Anna!! We wrote letters to ourselves writing about our goals for the program.
Anyway, then we had to sleep at 10:00. We had such meaningful and deep talks on our endeavors so far which has made everybody feel included.
Adios,
Annie and Ava
BLOG POST FOR JULY 1
Written by LOTDs Sydney and Claire:
On July 1st we woke up bright and early for a fueling breakfast that included cereal with a variety of milk along with fruit and toast. We took a long but beautiful ride in through the Costa Rican countryside and arrived at the chocolate tour.
There, we tasted each stage of the cacao fruit going from the fruit of the cacao to fresh chocolate made from the fermented cocoa seeds, leaving with stomachs full of chocolate. We then went souvenir shopping in bustling La Fortuna. It was a great adventure, fueling our shopping addictions.
After shopping, we went to the Baldi hot springs and enjoyed a buffet-style lunch. We then relaxed In the natural hot spring water, enjoying refreshing mocktails and gaining the benefits of the Costa Rican sun.
After, we went downtown in La Fortuna and enjoyed an evening of more shopping, plus ice cream and dessert. Leaving La Fortuna with a bag full of souvenirs and our stomachs full of ice cream we took the long drive back and arrived at home base.
Lastly we enjoyed an amazing meal consisting of vegan pasta bolognese or a delicious vegan burger. After an exciting day, we chilled in our rooms preparing for the next day.
Pura Vida!
Sydney and Claire
BLOG POST FOR JULY 2
Written by LOTDs Jaden and Zia:
Hola mamacitas,
Today we started our morning walking our lovely perros at the ripe time of 6:45 am. Then we ate a delicious breakfast of potatoes and yummy vegan pancakes! Then we worked with our gatos for the last time at Lands in Love, and we were so sad to leave them all.
After service, we had some tasty lunch, and then we all played fun games together! The lunch really got our bowel movements into motion, but here in Costa Rica toilet paper is not flushable (shoutout to America for the strong pipes 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅).
During our bonding time, most of us took a group nap while others were watching from a TV that only spoke Spanish. Luckily, our homie JuanCa taught us lovely español the past semana and we kind of got the gist of it.
Then we had mentor groups in which we wrote meaningful poems about who we are and where we come from. A lot of people shed tears and we all felt closer than ever before. Matt ended the mentor group with a group sing-a-long where we also discovered a fellow student’s secret talent of playing a Despicable Me tune on the guitar. (It was supa muy bien).
Lastly, we scarfed down our assorted dinner (not really assorted because everyone got the penne bolognese) and headed over to our guest speaker to learn more about Costa Rica and its wonders. In the presentation, we also took a quiz based on the last presentation (which we aced). Then we headed back to our rooms with our phones and went to bed!
Adios amigos,
Jaden and Zia
BLOG POST FOR JULY 3
Written by LOTDs Sydney and Karyme:
Hola chicos,
Today was a crazy day we woke up for our last day of service at Lands in Love. Then we went and had a scrumptious breakfast that included a variety of fruits and French toast with Nutella, jam, and syrup. After breakfast, we went to part 2 of the service which included working with chickens and horses. After service part 2, we all went and had lunch of our choice.
After lunch, we had an hour of free time which we used as nap time. Then, at 2:00 pm we went to our cooking class and learned how to make tortillas. During the cooking class, torrential rain poured down and almost flooded our cooking class. A dog also came by to get some chicken and stayed with us until the thunder and lightning had stopped.
After making tortillas, we decided to leave a little early due to how bad the rain was. On our drive back, we saw landslides, rocks on the road, people driving crazy, and cars driving into ditches.
After that wild adventure, we made it back to lands and love. We had some free time to shower and get cleaned up for our final dinner here. At dinner, we got a special dessert for our last night here. In our mentor group, we did spa night including face masks and relaxation.
After mentor groups, we headed back to our rooms to pack up and head to our next destination.
Adios,
Sydney and Karyme
BLOG POST FOR JULY 4
Written by LOTDs Annie and Ava:
(Not Many Photos Since Today was a Travel Day)
Welcome back gorditos!
Today, we woke up at 6:45 am and gave our luggage to the beautiful Geovani. He’s the best bus driver, on god no Kizzy. Then we had a delicious meal cooked by the lovely Nama once again. Although we were supposed to leave at 8:30 am SHARP, some silly little landslides made us delayed. At 9:00 am we departed for our 5-hour bus ride thanks to the beautiful Geovani.
During the bus ride, we stopped thrice (“very important”) to go to the bathroom and get some BUSSIN sandwiches. We were MUNCHING on these sandwiches. Annie graciously paid for Ava.
Then we pulled up to the nueva crib – Hotel Wilson. We had free time for 4 hours, where we basked in the AC and watched Spanish television. We also got to meet the veterinarians we will be working with for the next 4 days.
We had a delicious meal cooked by the lovely owners, Sharon and Jose. We then went back to our rooms to catch some peace and quiet. However… they actually surprised us with a band that was lowkey scary, but we got turnt, started dancing, and it was really $wag. And then, we moved outside by the pool, and the leaders of the day (us) decided to be trendsetters, jumped into the pool with our clothes on and everyone followed us.
Finally, we went to our rooms to rest before our day of service ahead.
Happy 4th of July,
Ava and Annie
BLOG POST FOR JULY 5
Written by LOTDs Annie and Ava:
It’s us again Gorditas, welcome back to our amazing blog!
Today we woke up at the crickety crack of dawn. We had a really good breakfast that empowered us to go about our day with meaning and passion. We then departed to go on a bus ride to the community we were visiting.
When we arrived at the community we split up into three groups and went to different houses to do wellness checks on the families’ pets. We took turns filling out forms regarding questions the VIDA team asked the homeowners. We each went to a few different houses. We saw puppies, kittens, squirrels, chickens, and lizards. We gave the families advice on how they could better care for their animals. We also gave the eligible pets dewormer and flea/tick repellant.
After a long morning of service and home visits, we left at around 10:20 AM and went to the food market to get some goods. We then went back to base and all decided/voted we weren’t going to go on the hike because we were all tired. So we took a nap and some of us went into the pool. We also went to watch Shrek 1 and 2, but we couldn’t finish the second one because we had the godforsaken Chow Circle.
We then had dinner which was cooked by the owners, and it was really great. After that, we had a mock debate for our mentor group tonight. It low-key got heated not gonna cap. It was really good though!! Now we have tech tiempo and the owners graciously blessed us with delicious ice pops.
Goodnight Gorditos y Gorditas! Ava and Annie now have to depart back to the motherland of the founders, until we meet again. (We now ride our bald eagles off into the sunset).
Over and out,
Ava and Annie
BLOG POST FOR JULY 6
Written by LOTDs Claire and Anja:
Hey, rats!!!!!!!!!!!
Another day in the villa. Bright and early, we got ready to go in our scrubs. After boarding the Geovani-mobile (our bus), we scurried on over to pick up the VIDA girlies, our wonderful veterinarians. Zooming around town in our hot ride, we arrived at a random concrete storage unit that would be the setting of our mobile clinic after a gruesome hour that lowkey wasn’t that bad.
We unlocked our inner “conventionally attractive” Barbie (-Matt) and DIY’ed a vet clinic. 5-minute crafts would be proud we really ate that up. Some locals straight from the nearby Costa Rican villages brought their fabulous dogs to our amazing clinic. We watched women in STEM spay the fabulous girly dogs and stuck some thermometers where the sun doesn’t shine.
Playing exterminator, it took many girl bosses to remove ticks from Gordito the third, one of our patients. After service, we wrapped up our Barbie dream house and expected to go zip-lining. In a series of unfortunate events that should have been predicted considering it was storming and thundering when we left, we trusted JuanCa (our local director) but had to leave when it turned out to be too wet…
Further fueling our shopping addictions, we braved the rain to look in the souvenir shop. Then after a gruesome ride home that was gruesome this time because it was wet and smelly and gross, we had a little free time.
Later we were blessed with wait for it… PIZZA. Girl, it’s been too long since we had some of her. There was also some cheesy bread which we gobbled up like the Gorditas we are. No shame. Blasting music, we wrapped up dinner and ended the day with mentor groups. Slay Anna!
Shout out to Sharon and Jose (owners of Hotel Wilson) for the pizza. Shout out to the scabies dog. Shout out to Baby Gordita for fixing the scale. Shout out to Coca-Cola. Passing the torch #keepitcaliente
Love you!!!
Anja and Claire
BLOG POST FOR JULY 7
Hello, my little gorditas!
We arose from the tundra of Hotel Marceva to embark on our journey to the catamaran at 6:00 am. We drove 2 hours to the beach and when we arrived, we got off the bus and walked on the beach. After waiting a short amount of time, a small boat came to get us on the beach and they drove us out to the Lazy Lizard catamaran.
When we got there we went over some brief safety rules and then we began our amazing trip in the ocean. We laid out on the netting and as we did that, we saw two pods of dolphins and they swam under us. It was such a cool experience.
When we got to a certain spot, we got out and went on a snorkeling tour, went paddle boarding, and had lunch. The food was so good! After that, we then came back and went back onto the bus. We then got stuck in the WOSRT traffic we have ever experienced in the entirety of our 14-17 years on this earth.
We finally made it to souvenir shopping after 3 hours of traffic. Then we departed to fast food! We got Taco Bell and Burger King (we were originally going to go to McDonalds, but they were closed). Then we came back to home base and ate our scrumptious food.
At night, we watched some movies and took some naps. Then we had karaoke. After that, we all went to our rooms and had a restful night so we could be energized for our day of service tomorrow.
Buenas,
Ava and Annie
BLOG POST FOR JULY 8
Written by LOTDs Ava and Annie:
We are back Gorditas!!!
Today we woke up bright and early for our service duties. We prepped dogs for surgery and did physicals, then we observed the spays and neuters with Dr. Jely at the surgery table. Today, we also had a special case of tending to a dog that had cancer and holding the patient still to ensure that her IV continued to drip and didn’t fall out.
After that, we took the cats or dogs to recovery, kept a close watch on their vitals, and made sure they were stable. After they started to wake up we removed their catheters and discharged them back to their families.
Service ended at noon, with Matt (the best international director ever) buying us popsicles as a reward for completing another full day of clinical work! We then went back to base and had lunch. After that we got ready and we went ziplining. It was so much fun! We went over different trees and rivers. We even got to repel/rock climb in a canyon, and some of us even went upside down!
After ziplining we came back to home base, had chow circle, and then a delicious meal cooked by the amazing hotel owners, Jose and Sharon. Later we had our last mentor group with Anna (the best mentor ever). We wrote reflections about what we learned about ourselves, what we will take back home with us, and what we will continue to do to make a change in our communities.
Following the final mentor group we planned to get a good night’s sleep for the last day of service and to mentally prepare for our five-hour drive to the Hotel Robledal for our final night in Costa Rica together tomorrow.
Farewell everybody,
Ava and Annie (best LOTD duo fr)
BLOG POST FOR JULY 9
Welcome back to the blog :).
Today, the students woke up bright and early once again to have breakfast at 6:30 am and have their last day of service! Due to today being a travel day, students only had a half day of service, primarily focused on vaccinations and preventative care for all of the local animals! We even got to give out candy and other resources to the local community/children! Today was also a very special day for one of our vets, Dr. Sylvia, who celebrated her birthday with the entire GLA group!
After service, we headed back to our Home Base to quickly shower/freshen up, load our luggage on the bus, and eat lunch prior to our 5-hour bus ride back to Hotel Robledal, which would be the last home base before the students departed from SJO.
On the 5-hour bus ride, we stopped by a Costa Rican McDonalds for a quick little snack break!!
Finally, after a tumultuous journey, we finally made it to Hotel Robledal. There, we got ready in our fancy outfits for our farewell (final) dinner. As night fell, all of the students participated in the final activities to end their GLA journey, including making their “One Meaningful Goal” (OMG) that they would try to pursue as they travel back home, and the appreciation circle.
All the students then said goodbye to JuanCa (the best local director ever) and packed all of their luggage prior to their flights tomorrow.
Buenas Noches, and see you tomorrow for the final blog post!
-Matthew Hwang (International Director)
BLOG POST FOR JULY 10
Buenas tardes,
Today was a bittersweet day as we said goodbye to the amazing 8 students who made up the second “Animal Rescue and Veterinary Project” GLA Costa Rica trip of 2024! Staff dropped off students at the San Jose airport in groups depending on what time their flight was departing. All students have departed without any issue, and should be arriving home shortly!
On behalf of the staff, we want to thank every student that made this trip possible. We truly loved getting to know everyone’s vibrant and bubbly personalities as the trip progressed; every individual truly contributed a unique piece to this amazing puzzle that was Session 2, and we could not have asked for better individuals. To the students, thank you for your tremendous kindness, sass, laughter, joy, and plenty of unforgettable moments that we as staff will truly cherish.
For most, it was their first time outside of the country alone, and we hope that Costa Rica was truly a one-of-a-kind trip that the students will never forget, and take their newfound global knowledge, leadership skills, and life lessons that they have learned on this trip to “be the change” in the world as our future leaders.
Pura Vida, and Goodbye for Now! 😊
💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙
🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙
Matt (International Director)
JuanCa (Local Director)
Anna (Mentor)
