Welcome to the Dia Rea Music Corner!

An exclusive page for those who are not afraid to think this world is a boring place unless we make it fun and switch from living to living a dream! The most exciting thing is that opportunities are abundant, and it's never, never too late to do it!! :)

Need some guidelines for absolute beginners? We have one inspiring story for you - a tale of a big dream discovered on a plate of daily rice and beans.

How We Met Dia Rea

There is no ordinary day on the road - each one takes us to unfamiliar places and new people. Some of them are less exciting than others and will vanish over time; some are remarkable and will forever remain an irreplaceable part of our Pan-Americana memories… and then, there are days that bring us to people whose plans and ideas are simply too overwhelming to be left behind! It's like a sudden realization that the road dream you've been pursuing was missing an important dimension, which you had failed to think about...

You can go visiting the same places, and live your dream while at the same time helping other people's dreams come true!!

Bet by now we have confused you enough :) In reality, it's all much simpler. It was our first long-awaited day on Roatan when we first met Dia Rea: Adi and Stefan, two musicians from Austria with big dreams, big plans, two big selfless hearts and one big funky bus by the name Mystery Ship.

At the time we met, the three of them (Adi, Stefan and the Mystery Ship) were about to begin a trip through Central America - the route almost identical to ours, only with a goal almost as big as their bus! - - to do it all for the music: drive across the countries listening to the local musicians, playing with the local bands, and looking for undiscovered talents in the countries they traverse - all for the purpose of eventually recording the great music that otherwise would have no chance of ever being heard outside a local village or town.

The day we came to know Dia Rea, Stefan was still in Austria preparing for the trip, Mystery Ship was sitting and waiting for the guys in New Jersey, while Adi was lingering on Roatan so he could teach us to dive before leaving! :) (Yes, it's the same Adi, our diving instructor! Check our news reports from Roatan for complete coverage).

Big Songs on Small Roads

The preliminary thoughts of the forthcoming project were born in 2002, during Adi and Stefan's first trip across Central America. As Adi told us, "Instead of keeping a traditional diary, we started putting our impressions and adventures into songs. With the help of music you can tell so much more about what you see on the road, especially when talking about the countries where music is the most important part of daily life …."

Performing together with the local musicians followed naturally - the songs they wrote called for much more than two guitars, so Adi and Stefan started inviting local musicians to play with them. What commenced as random gigs along the road, began attracting crowds of fans and eventually resulted in an exciting and unique 13-song album:

Arroz y Frijoles
(El Diaro Musical de un Viaje en America Central)*
recorded by Dia Rea in Guatemala, 2002

*Rice and Beans (The Musical Diary of a Trip across Central America)

Our very special 'THANKS' goes to Dia Rea for letting us share the whole album with the guests of our Go-Panamerican Web site. We have all the 13 songs in MP3 format for you guys! Feel free to download them, listen to them, love them, praise them, criticize them, share them with your friends, and don't forget to let us know what you think about them.

When you are done with the songs, continue scrolling down for the info about Dia Rea's upcoming project!

Right click on song titles and select "Save As" to download:

Rey de la Carretera
*If you have ever ridden a chicken bus in Central America, you will agree that there is hardly a better name for the driver of a bus than Rey de la Carretera - the King of the Road.

Gringo
* "Why do they keep calling me Gringo, if all of us are Americans?" - A story about a guy from Texas in Antigua Guatemala, who fell in love with a local girl Juanita and found himself facing an unfamiliar hitch - why El gringo is always El gringo?.

Arroz y Frijoles
*Rice and beans is the basis of every typical Centroamerican meal. Since it's cheap, filling, tasty and easy to get or prepare, it naturally becomes the basis of every traveler's diet. Eventually, you become so bored of the daily rice and beans that you think you will never ever want them again, once you get out of here… Until you are no longer there and realize that there is nothing more difficult than living without arroz y frijoles… and the taste of good life, which in Central America mysteriously comes included with every serving of rice and beans :)

Guadalupe
*This song is dedicated to a little girl from a shoe store in Antigua Guatemala… as well as to all other young girls of Central America. The time they are selling us shoes, bananas, hammocks and hand-made bracelets is the time when they should be at school learning to read and write… "You never see the sun, and the wind cannot find you… how can this bud ever come into flower, if water doesn't come?"

Horno Viejo
* "One learns to cook in an old oven" - based on an old Austrian saying.

Que Me Duele
* A random heartache will do you good :)

Hotel Garifuna
* Gotta go there with a boata (and you might need to smoke some gooda ganja) to understand the real meaning of this coola song!

Solo Tu
*yet another easy lover?... or a guy lost among his feelings, revealing another big problem of Central America: young girls here get pregnant so early that when a potential boyfriend meets the mother of the sweetheart (as required by tradition!), he can easily get slightly perplexed which one he really likes better: the young girl or the also very young and good-looking mother …

Otoño
* Such are the songs you play when the lack of daily rice and beans finally hits you :)

Rosita
* A song about dramatically overlapping societal and individual attitudes. In the countries of Central America, the majority of people still rarely manage to separate their feelings about recent political matters from personal affairs.

Hasta Siempre
* A tribute song to Ernesto Che Guevara, originally writtten by a Cuban folk artist Carlos Ruebla, performed by Dia Rea.

Que Aprendí
* A concise dictionary of phrases and expressions you must know to find your way across Central America.

Mujer con Bigote
* A woman with mustache… one of the greatest songs on the album, but we will leave this one for you to interpret :)

The Mission

You don't need to be a big musician to notice that the Latin world is all about music. Throughout Central and South Americas music is like the daily rice and beans - just like no plate makes a good meal without arroz y frijoles, so is no day complete without a Latin tune. Not only the people here live and breathe music - so many of them are talented players, singers and composers who - alas! - stand a very little chance to ever be heard outside their tiny towns and villages.

Fortunately, from time to time we hear about great musicians who are not satisfied with the mere enjoinment of writing and playing their own songs, or just appreciating the fine exotic music they accidentally discover. Thanks to one of such guys, Ryland "Ry" Cooder, a guitarist from Los Angeles, the world came to know Buena Vista Social Club: Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez, Compay Segundo and Omara Portuondo, to name a few of the today-world-famous Cuban musicians. The names surely ring the bell for most of you, and perhaps you even know a couple of Buena Vista songs by heart; but have you ever heard the story of their discovery? In short, in 1996 Ry Cooder, a fine guitar player from LA who once said that "music is a treasure hunt - you dig and dig, and sometimes you find something", arrived in Havana for what he thought would be just sessions for a guitar-based tropical album featuring some Cuban players... The fate had it its way, and Buena Vista Social Club happened instead! Ry gave up his original album idea, and went back to LA with a mission to tell the world about the Cuban sensation he had accidentally discovered. in 1997, the first "Buena Vista Social Club" album became an international sensation.

In June 2006, Dia Rea went on a very similar mission: embrace the world through music!

Adi and Stefan started their musical journey in New Jersey, continued across the States to southern California, then left the USA and started rolling down through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The guys are looking for the music too great to remain trapped within local settlements, in order to record it and give it a chance to spread across the world.

You can be a part of the adventure!

If you live (or have friends) in one of the countries on Dia Rea's list: Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica or Panama, and know any places or people which/whom you think Adi and Stefan should not miss, please send the information to Dia Rea!

This is the Web site of the project: http://www.diarea.net

Any other cooperative thoughts and suggestions are very welcome, please write to us and let us know what you think.
Cheers!