A laaaaaaaazy rainy day, and the perfect excuse to lounge around in a hammock all day, reading and chatting. Met a new friend in the hammock lounge at Rockin J´s, a biology teacher from Darby, England, named Tony. Funny guy! Seems like you could wind him up and he´d chat all day. But unlike most people, where you´re wishing they´d just shut the hell up after a few sentences, Tony managed to keep me (and then Jules) amused for the better part of the day. We discussed hacking, teaching, travel philosophies, and how much fun it is to pretend to be a different profession when you meet new people. I´ve decided that from now on I´m going to be an international assassin. I could tell you more, but then I´d have to kill you.

Whew, and that totally lazy day turned into a totally crazy night. Where to begin? Around sunset, Tony introduced us to two of his British cohorts, Benno and Adele. They set up a minibar next to Tent 25, and we spent the next hour or so playing some wacked drinking game with animal charades. (Tony, if you´re reading this: I MUST get those pics of each of us "doing" our animals!) Once we were good and knackered, it was time to head out in search of dinner.

And that´s where things started to go a bit awry. It was only then that we noticed just how much gin & tonic Adele had put away. She was a little wiggy to begin with (who gets fired from a volunteer job on a farm after just one day?!?) but the booze put her over the edge. After Adele caused a bit of a scene at the first restaurant because they were out of whatever the heck it was she´d wanted to order, we decided to split before they started spitting in our food or worse. OK, the second place seemed to be a better choice, until Adele decided to order us all a round of tequila shots and then was shocked when the bill came. And then she insisted we were all angry with her for incurring this extra expense, so we had to have a big group hug in the middle of the dustry street. Fantastic.

Right, so we finally made it to Cafe Maritza, where there was indeed live reggae music and all of Rockin J´s seemed to be present. The place was OK, but had that tinge of malaise you sometimes get in Caribbean clubs... as though one of the edgy Rasta guys might just whip out a knife at a moment´s notice and gut one of the turistas like a fish. Fortunately we had two fierce-looking bouncers in our posse. ;)

After listening to the thunderingly loud music until our ears began to bleed, we headed outside for some air. The evening´s coup de grace was seeing Adele engage in conversation with the magic-doin drug-sellin guy who looked like a grizzled Santa Claus, and then insist he was her friend and that he was going to give her a ride home! And then -- wait for it! -- she got on the handlebars of his rickety-ass bike and they rode off into the darkness. We worried for a bit that she might wind up sold into white slavery, but then decided that she´d probably annoy her captors into letting her go within a day or so. Ay caramba.