I just arrived to San Francisco from Costa Rica about an hour ago. This concludes a 19-day trip that started out with a one-way ticket to Boston. I learned a lot about myself on this trip, and I'll be spending more time to flesh out these learnings in future posts. Given that it's a late hour and I have work tomorrow, I'll keep it brief.
- Learning is one of my main joys in life. I absolutely loved the biohacking class that I took in NYC. It was a domain that I was completely unfamiliar with, yet very interested in. I now feel not just more knowledgeable, but more inspired to do things I never thought I could be able to do. I plan to find a biology lab nearby to redo some of the experiments I learned and expand on that.
- I love dynamic and unpredictable environments. When I bought my one-way ticket to Boston, I did not have clear plans of what I wanted to get out of the trip. I knew I wanted to meet some people at Harvard Arab Weekend and wanted to spend some time in NYC, but that was really it. I ended up meeting beautiful and inspiring people, learning biohacking, and going on an unexpected trip to Costa Rica. Who knew?! Routine, I am realizing, is death to me, and I need to keep things moving for me. Not necessarily that I should be moving around all the time, but trying new things and picking up projects that engage me.
- I hate tourist towns. At least when I am traveling alone, I hate spending time in tourist towns. I had to go to a little tourist town called Manuel Antonio to run away from the hurricane. While the nature there is beautiful, I didn't enjoy my time there too much. Tourist towns are all starting to look very similar to me. Manuel Antonio looks similar to Coron in the Philippines and to some extent Montañita in Ecuador. They all lack substance, and substance is what I look for. Having said that, with friends it can be a fun place for a couple of days. On the other hand, I immensely enjoyed stumbling on what turned out to be a modest church/warehouse, singing and chatting with local people - that was substance!
- Spontaneity is fun, but having a rough plan is better for short trips. Unlike my trip to spontaneous trip to Ecuador, my trip to Costa Rica was both a spontaneous and a short trip. While I did have a great time, I could have had a more heightened experience if I had planned it out in advance. For example, I would have loved to do an ayahuasca ceremony while I was there, but I couldn't because I needed to be on a special diet for a week prior to the ceremony. Also, there was a lot of "sunk time" while I was there researching and figuring out what to do. On longer trips though, this isn't as important.
That's all I have for tonight. I'll end this post with a selfie I took while I visiting Poás Volcano on Saturday. I rarely take selfies, and I am generally not a big fan, but there you have it!
