Rain
This is the story of a tropical storm. For most people, that isn’t maybe as dramatic or exciting as it sounds.
I woke at 5am to the sound of heavy rain clattering the thin, plastic roof. As I set out from the hotel it was raining hard, fast streams gushing along the storm gutters. When I climbed aboard the 6am bus from Monteverde to the coastal town of Puntarenas, it had eased, but it was certainly raining. As the bus descended down from the cloud forests down towards the coast, it was drizzling, and drizzling still as it pulled into Puntarenas.
I wandered round the town, through the streets, through the rain, through the fish market, past the football stadium. At the ferry terminal it was raining. As the ferry left port, it was raining. For the hour and a bit across the Gulf of Nicoya, it was raining. Grey sea, grey skies.
I left the ferry and joined the waiting bus to the hippie-beach-surfing town of Montezuma, and it had almost, so very nearly, stopped – but it was raining. The bus twisted and turned through the green, wet landscape of the Southern Nicoya Peninsula, and it was raining. When we arrived in Montezuma, two hours later, the heavens were wide open again.
I found a hotel, and sat down to catch the last twenty minutes of the England Mexico friendly. Outside, the rain was running off the roofs, running from the trees, running down the hills. The rain picked up as I set out to find some food, and it was cats and dogs when I returned to the hotel. It was raining as I sat on the terrace, and raining as I gave up on the day and went to bed at 9pm.
The next morning, when I learnt that the wind had whipped up the seas and my snorkeling trip was canceled, it was raining. As I wandered down the rugged coast road, watching dirty brown streams gushing down from the hills, dirty brown rivers churning and threatening to sweep the bridges away, it was raining. As the land crabs warily retreated into their holes before me, it was raining. Through lunchtime, teatime, through a fruitless visit to the broken internet cafe, through a temporary insect invasion, though a visit to the supermarket, though six hours reading, waiting and watching the rain, it was raining.
Definitions of “raining” are changed. “Raining hard” becomes “raining”. “Raining” becomes “not really raining”. “Drizzling” becomes “not raining”.
I’m sure Montezuma is lovely in the summertime but even for an Englishman, two full days of rain is hard to swallow.
Tomorrow may rain, so I’ll follow the sun. Since my boat to Jacó was washed out by rough seas, that means the road back to Paquera, the boat back to Puntarenas, then the road south.
