Ticapaloosa Aside

If you watched the Rose Parade on New Year's Day 2020, you may have seen the marching band from Zarcero CR, one of the towns we visited on Day 2.

I learned from an Uber driver that marching bands in Costa Rica are typically a municipal thing, rather than a high school or university thing. Each year there is a band competition where marching bands from across CR compete and the winner of that competition becomes the participant in the following year's Rose Parade. This gives the team and the village time to perfect their performance and raise the funds to travel.

(Sadly even the Rose Parade marketing team cannot differentiate Costa Rica from Puerto Rico, even though this country sends a band every year.)

Watch the performance here.