Halloween and Hitting the Road

Halloween was the oddest night. We started off with a big birthday dinner for Juli, everyone in costume. I will put up pictures when I have internet capable of uploading, yes, this is because I am not living hostel to hostel. I share my views on the hostels on the booking website so I won't bore you with those here. Lucre and Hector surprised Juli with mariachis, not a tradition here in Costa Rica in case you were wondering. Any one who has ever had Profe Centeno should know Mananitas, and this includes me, so I was able to sing along to the Mexican birthday song to everyone's delight.

Then we went to this reggae dancehall, not really my scene. They played reggae music until the main act- an all male dancing crew came out to perform. It was like an NSync concert but there was no singing. We literally just hungout there until 3 in the morning. This was not your usual Ghostbusters/Thriller dance party. In fact, most Ticans were not in costume as Halloween is a recent import. There were pretty much no decorations and the locals (mostly guys) were way too embarassed to dress up.

Now I am about to catch a bus to Liberia which will land me at Rincon de la Vieja national park, there's a volcano! I am going to do some hikes and maybe hang out in a mud pool. This past night I stayed at a little hostel owned by 2 young (like early 20's) kids from Chicago. It's quaint, they're always burning incense and I think it's to mask the smell of the city more than anything. But I said I wasn't going to bore you with hostel details so I'll stop. BUT, I do have just one quick anecdote to tell:

There's this random kid from Toronto named Rawlins and I don't really know how to describe him. He's constantly trying to be deep and profound but it just never really comes across coherently. Last night we were changing up music on the channels and I put on the movie soundtrack channel, it was Ray Charles singing Georgia. Rawlins earnestly looks at me and goes, "Do you think he's singing about the state or the country?" And while I know most of Ray's biggest hits center on countries in Eurasia, I had a hard time fighting back a smile.