A group of CMU students returned from a trip to southern Brazil on Jan. 16. Twelve students, led by Outdoor Program Director Chad Thatcher, spent five weeks backpacking around Rio de Janeiro, Iguaçu Falls, São Paulo and other stunning sites.

“It’s pretty rare that you get to spend a month with a group of people just exploring,” Thatcher said. “There were two returning students, but the rest were new travelers, and they did amazing.”

Because of Brazil’s economic prosperity, the trip was different from many other Outdoor Program International trips. The group was competing with many Brazilians for a place to stay and even spent time working for hostels to spend the night for free.

“There is a buzz in the air and things are alive like the 1920s for America,” Thatcher said. “People just have their own helicopters to get around from landing pad to landing pad in São Paulo.”

For New Years, the team headed to Rio. The event was supposed to be one of the most expensive moments of the trip, but the group pulled it off with ease. They put on their white clothes, unloaded their bags into storage and spent 12 hours welcoming in the New Year with millions of strangers on the beach.

“We met tons of people,” Thatcher said. “We met some guys at a skate park and in a city of twelve million managed to bump into them again. Little things like that happen all the time.”

The group also traveled out of the urban energy and went hang gliding, scuba diving and exploring.

“These trips shape your life and become who you are,” Thatcher said. “Whatever you think is so important in your life can hold off. They will never be an excuse again.”

All of the students who participated are already planning their next trips. Three of them even stayed behind and are continuing to travel around South America.

“If you put it off you live an ordinary life and I don’t want students to live that way,” Thatcher said. “You don’t have much time and you’ve got to take advantage of it.”

To hear more about the trip, see pictures and hear stories from students, go to the Maverick Center Auditorium, room 155, at 7:30 this Wednesday for this weeks Wednesday Night Wandering.