Jonah's Gap Year Journal

After a simultaneously chaotic and slow burn stay at my hotel in Quito, it was time to fly to California. I woke up at 8 in the morning on the 15th and took a taxi to the airport at 10. In an effort to limit redundancy I'll copy a section from my notebook here that explains how the day unfolded: "The flight info that Alison sent me had all the flight times in 12-hour time. When I wrote my itinerary, I converted all of them to 24-hour time, for clarity's sake. Ironically, I seem to have missed one important conversion. This was the time of departure for my flight from Quito to Houston. If I had looked ahead at the departure from Houston to SF, I would have noticed that it was for 5:50 rather than "17:50". I therfore could potentially have considered the possibility that my flight to Houston actually departed at 00:40, rather than 12:40, which is what I wrote. I arrived at the Quito airport, Mariscal Sucre, at 10:40 this morning. I went to check in when to my disma...

I just spent the last 4 days on the Galapagos Islands in a town called Puerto Ayora with my childhood best friend Mateo and his family. It was an unreal experience to see Mateo again after multiple years, but of course we realized the instant we saw each other that nothing had changed all too much. His family let me stay in their house and showed me around the island, and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to finally fly out to see them. The days leading up to my arrival, however, were a little more chaotic. I spent two full days traveling from Costa Rica to the islands, which are a time zone west of the coast of Ecuador. Waking up in Tamarindo on the first full travel day was not an easy task, such that I missed my 5:30 am bus to San Jose. As it turns out, this may have been for the better because the hostel had not yet finished cleaning my laundry. After a few stressful hours of packing, waiting for my clothes, and figuring out how the heck I was going to get to the air...

Currently I am sitting in my new favorite place: a coffee shop called Derecho Sagrado. Not only does this place have amazingly high quality coffee and local Kombucha, but it is a gathering place for some of my favorite people. Halfway through my trip, I met a pair of locals who have all moved from the United States to Tamarindo. Adrian is an amazing glassblower and a local guide, and Timber just through hiked the AT in a few months, has a rich academic background both as a teacher and a student, and has been a mentor in my yoga journey. Aside from them, I have met countless people here at the coffee shop who have so many stories and skills to share. After my initial Botella de Leche family moved on in their travels, I've been left to spend practically all of my time here at the coffee shop with my new squad. I wake up, do about 30 minutes of yoga, take a shower, and then take the shortcut to Derecho Sagrado where I'm guaranteed to see someone willing to have a conversation. Th...

This morning I woke up at 9:30 am, walked 15 minutes to return my surf board to the rental place, came back to the hostel, and slept from 10:30 until 3:30 pm. My body is constantly reminding me that I have four years of sleepless high school to make up for, and I could not be happier that I can sleep as much as I want during my time in Tamarindo. I'm starting to really become comfortable in this town. I've also realized what a gift this hostel is. Everyone from the volunteers working the front desk to my roommates to the folks I meet from other rooms is a friend to me from the moment I meet them. Despite the dizzying rotation of 4-day guests making way for new short term visitors, I can always count on having someone to go out for some food and drink with. The new "Botella de Leche Family" group chat includes besties such as Rosie, Matilda, Denise, Ofir, Malka, Sofia, and more. Jimmy from Atlanta, Georgia (NOT Alabama) left this morning with a sweet text message. My t...

As I have spent more time in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, I've only fallen more in love. The people here are so friendly and the hostel is full of travelers with great stories. I'm so glad I gave myself so much time at this hostel to really become comfortable. Today is day 5 and I have 13 still ahead of me! I make so many fantastic memories every day here that it will be impossible to recount all of them, but here are a few of my favorites: I rented a surfboard with Jimmy and yesterday we took his friend Matt to a beach about 30 minutes south of Tamarindo by car. When we got there I soon realized the waves were much bigger than the baby waves I learned on here in Tamarindo, and after 5 minutes of struggling to paddle out past the break I made the realistic decision to leave my board in the sand and go for a swim instead. The experience of both diving under and floating over waves taller than myself really put me in touch with the movement of the ocean. It was so fun to watch Matt an...

Wow! Time has escaped me. I hoped to make a post in the last two days but never got around to it, so even though it hasn't been very long since the last post I anticipate this one will be longer than the others. I arrived two days ago at my hostel, La Botella de Leche (that's "the bottle of milk"), in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Upon my arrival in Liberia I was faced with the choice between a 90 minute air conditioned taxi ride for $120 and a 3.5 hours plus series of bus rides that would cost me a whopping total of 6 US dollars. One lost water bottle and a pint of sweat later, I found myself meandering around the rough terrain of Tamarindo's dirt roads in pursuit of what would be my home for the next 18 days. Immediately when I walked in I was greeted by Juan, the friendly front desk guy who gave me a tour of the quaint hostel. I realized even though I didn't see many people here at first this would be a cozy place to stay with all the resources I would need. Of ...

Over my trip, I've been filling up my notebook with the most eclectic cocktail of content, from lists to drawings to poems to narratives similar to those you will read here. Mainly, they're for my own reflection later in my life and as such I don't expect much of my blog/journal content to cross over. However, I made a list of things that I learned in Miami that I thought I should meditate on. I think a lot of these things could help any fellow travelers as they navigate the world or realistically anyone navigating life! So, I decided to copy it word for word for you guys to read: The importance of LISTENING Go into hotels!!! They are beautiful!!! A good deal of German vocab, including: Schnorrer (mooch), Muscheln (shells), and Kaninchendraht (rabbit wire) The usefulness of Citibikes, trolleys, and all other affordable public transport (ubers are a last resort!) To tell people in India I'm from Canada- they don't like Americans To book the emergency exit seats on...