Voyassitude

They are on vacation, immersing in new, unique experiences. I have no right to torment them with electronic nightmares from their land when Germany is so far away. But I can’t resist.

“Hey, I have another German song! Let’s see if you recognize this one,” I say.

I turn the volume up on my phone and hit play. After a few seconds of uncertainty, realization sinks in. Then laughter and disbelief appear.

Disco Pogo, dingelingeling

Dingelingeling,

Und alle Atzen sing’n

It’s a wet Friday morning in the Alajuela province, and after hours of hiking through a Costa Rican rainforest to reach the popular Río Celeste waterfall, our tour group is taken to a small, authentic restaurant by the road to enjoy the traditional casado dish. At the table I discover Germans surround me, so we begin to talk about Munich, Oktoberfest, latest trips, future destinations, and my recent obsession with German artists such as Von Wegen Lisbeth despite not understanding a single word.

Once we’re done with lunch and back on the tour bus, I keep the conversation going with the closest German to me, Selma, a doctor who’s doing this trip with her friend Donya. The vehicle picks up speed as it cuts through a countryside decorated with the logo for Imperial, the national beer, and tiny houses with open doors where life seems as chill and effortless as Costa Ricans themselves. The Arenal Volcano inexorably begins to take main stage in the background; as we move closer to it I suddenly remember a German group and a song that I feel the urge to share with Selma and Donya.

Once it starts playing there is a brief moment of hesitation, and I think with a hint of disappointment that they might not recognize it, but then it hits them. Is it the fast beat, is it the Was ist los, es ist Party angesagt!?Whatever it is, Disco Pogo makes its way through their memories and Selma is now laughing out loud. It’s a frank, infectious sound, intertwined with some comments in German to Donya, who smiles as Die Atzen continues a turbulent, unstoppable affair with the synthesizer.

A German guy whose name I can’t remember sits a few rows up front. He has his earphones on but the music from my phone still reaches him. He removes one earbud as if to confirm that here, in the outskirts of La Fortuna, thousands of kilometers away from his native Deutschland, Disco Pogo has inexplicably managed to surface in this bus, bringing a half-incredulous, half-amusing smile to his lips.

Music can be mysterious and massively powerful. I started liking cumbia some years ago but never quite loved it, not until last year when, after disembarking from a ferry in Sydney, I found myself at a quay where a Colombian band was playing some of the most iconic songs cumbia has delivered in my country’s history. It was so implausible, so bizarre yet so captivating. Before I knew it my feet were tapping the floor to the rhythm of guacharacas and timbales, music closing the gap with my homeland as it ran through my veins to make me fall in love with cumbia for the very first time.

I can understand why Disco Pogo basically traumatized the girl who first introduced me to this song (after all, she had to suffer it an entire night on a bus trip to England), and Selma and I agreed as we listened to it that it’s somewhat trashy. But the fact it provoked genuine laughter or looks of incredulity makes it a German gem I’m grateful for because it offered an entertaining episode on a bus as outside, standing timeless and majestic in the distance, a colossal volcano reminded us that we were far away from home, yet everything felt incredibly close and familiar.