A group of high-schoolers strolls under the blazing sun in 100-degree weather. The air that it burns their throats and causes proper hydration to become nothing short of a necessity.
The members have just been walking around for hours, but it passed like minutes, the laughter and camaraderie melting the time away better than Salvador Dali ever could.
To some, this description may not seem so alien. This could very much be a day at Disney or a venture to Universal.
Unlike Florida though, this locale has one catch regarding its climate; variation. While summer nights in the Orlando area might never drop below eighty degrees, those in the Himalayas might sink to the sub-fifties.
Sponsored by Rustic Pathways, eighteen Trinity students visited the Indian capital of New Delhi as well as the surrounding countryside of Leh and other parts of the subcontinent in June. Recent alum Preston Copenhaver was one of the members who made the trek:
“The air [at Leh] was pure and crisp,” Copenhaver said. “We wore T-shirts during the days and thick jackets while we sipped tea and shared laughs at night.”
The voyage was led by Trinity’s fine arts teacher, Ryan Bowden. While other trips usually occur in more developed countries, the voyage to India took the opposite approach.
“Even though we were still technically tourists, we tried to experience life like the locals,” Bowden said. “We stayed with a Ladakhi family in the mountains for three days in a small, modest home built by hand…The bread we ate was made from scratch, and the milk in our tea came from the local goats that morning…Students actually got to sleep in the yurts with the locals, who made their living by shearing the kashmir wool.”
Although such a trip could seem carefree, it still had its hurdles. One attending member who found himself tackling trials head-on was Trinity’s social science teacher William Milsten explained how he appreciated the landscape, despite the hardship inherent in travel.
“[During] the first days, we had to acclimate to the air,” Milsten said. “Some days, I would get winded walking around. Eventually, we did acclimate…in Leh, Bowden and I were so cold one night that we went on an expedition to steal blankets from the travel guides.”
The rustic edge seems a challenge worth taking: to experience a complete reversal of one’s way of life is so difficult to accurately imagine that it must be experienced. Yet, the separation from western amenities may be too extreme.
“Most of the activities involved with this trip are not comfortable, but that’s okay.” Bowden says. “ For those students who maybe did struggle, they could always cope with the camera. What’s nice about a trip involving photography is that you can use the lens like a wall.”
Junior Liam Loftus describes how he enjoyed this emphasis on photography when recounting his trip:
“I learned a lot about layers like foreground, midground and background. Of course, you can take great photos anywhere, but being in India helps. Everybody let us take photos of them. In hindsight, although it might have seemed intimidating, I am really appreciative I attended.”