Excerpts...

Joely and I divvied up the list and we're going to write snippets about all the wonderful characters we encountered.  Here's my first contribution:

Assassin On The Bass
So, the Assassin was this Russian-looking guy travelling with a tiny daughter/girlfriend. We noticed him on the second day. We were in the hotel lobby bar.  A 5-piece band was belting out slightly-to-extremely terrible covers of everything from the Beatles to Bruno Mars. Mid-slightly-terrible cover of the Eagles, the Assassin walks up to the band and stands there smiling, swaying, snapping his giant killing fingers. His daughter/girlfriend stayed back seemingly amused by his odd behavior. He stood there for a good 2 minutes then as quickly as it began, he walked away. We were confused and bemused in our mango daiquiri haze. We decided he was a ruthless assassin with a penchant for adult contemporary music...gets him in the mood.

Fast forward 2 days. Same bar, same lukewarm cover band. This time, we choose to sit out on the patio but have a great view of the stage. We toast with our Sol con limon - “To US!”. I raise my drink to my lips and freeze…Daughter/Girlfriend is standing against the wall opposite the band - beaming. I follow her gaze across the room and there...on the stage...playing the bass guitar...is the Assassin. He’s sitting in the with the band. He played a mean bass solo -- I’m talkin’ assassin mean. You might say...he killed it.