La Festival de Las Luces

The Festival of Lights!!! 

Part of the Costa Rican Christmas tradition, this annual festival is a parade of marching bands, floats, and an explosion of Costa Rican Christmas pride! People come from all over the country to line the downtown street, Paseo Colon, with chairs, coolers, and crates to stand on.  The festival doesn't begin until dark, obviously, since it's all about the lights! The crowd is there long before that, however, and patiently waits for hours to secure the best viewing location.  We arrived in town a few hours before the sun went down to squeeze out a blog post, then the sound of the drums and festivities outside drew us into the streets to join the fun. The marching bands line up right in front of our favorite hostel, Galileo, so we were able to steal our friend Bryan away to join us for the festivities.  We came. We saw. We blog.

Starting things off with a bang!!!! 

Hard to see, but the Cheerleaders are not only wearing mini stiletto boots but also have Feliz Navidad embroidered on their stylish jackets!

Such detailed costumes! Every person in the parade had their face decorated in some way or another.  The guy on the right's red and white shirt says "Christmas is more than gifts".  Yes, in Costa Rica it's also about getting all dressed up and dancing through the streets.

The first time we got to hang out with Bryan outside of the hostel! That place is like a vortex.

Have you seen a cuter Christmas elf?!

We got to watch the behind-the-scenes action! Here they are perfecting their moves.  The girl in the center really knew how to work it

Check out the puffball fingers!

Perhaps our favorite costumes of the night for obvious reasons

We wanted to get a picture with the feathered headdress girls, but we settled for this guy.

Check the attitude on this Tica. Ready to walk the streets!

The band letting their instruments rest up before the big march

The Golden Child

Robot Powered Christmas!

The band and Galileo. We've had coffee on that very balcony! Usually the view isn't this good, though. Just buses and cars and lots of horn honking. And sometimes juggling. And fire throwing.

Burbujas! Burbujas! (that means bubbles, one of our FAVORITE spanish words!)

It's not easy gettin' all these pics! We were on our tiptoes for hours.  Should have worn our high heels. hahahahahhahahahaahh!!!!