The Rainy Season

The view from my room in San Jose.  There are usually a LOT more clouds.

When they named this season, they were not kidding.  It has rained almost every day that I have been here for at least a few hours, if not all day.  Most days, it is dry in the morning, sometimes even sunny, and then it rains in the afternoon and/or evening and/or night.  However, it was really bad last week, when I think it rained for two days straight.  From what I have heard, this year has been especially bad, and last week there was a tropical storm passing nearby.  Many roads were and are closed due to mudslides and flooding, and I believe two major roads (one of which is less than a year old) collapsed.  This meant that our planned excursion to the Monteverde cloud forest was switched to a trip to Tamarindo beach.  While I had read that traveling during the rainy season was not too bad since it means there are fewer tourists, the effects it can have on travel have been significant this year.  Usually, only smaller roads are closed due to flooding, but this year, two of the largest roads have been closed because they collapsed in parts.  Every night last week, the news was about the rain.  More floods, more mudslides, more collapsed roads.  It may not be like this every year, but I think the rain is definitely worth taking seriously when planning to travel here.  Fewer tourists and cheaper prices don’t mean as much when you can’t get where you want to go, when you want to go.  At the least, bring a waterproof jacket and shoes (but be ready to stand out by actually wearing them) and a good umbrella.  Luckily, I will be here for three months so I plan on going to Monteverde another weekend.  After all, this is supposed to be the last really wet month of the rainy season.

View from the hotel balcony in Tamarindo.

As for Tamarindo: Beaches were nice, canopy tour was fun, nightlife was decent, but I don’t think it will be one of my favorite places.  I am sure there are better beaches elsewhere, I have heard that the canopy tour in Monteverde can’t be beat, and while the nightlife was fun, it was definitely pretty sketchy.  Let me just say, I was very glad that the tour company ISA uses had us in a nice hotel with a gate and security.  Also, while the canopy tour in Monteverde may be better (I’ll let you know), I was pretty sure it would be the kind of thing I would love to do more than once and I was right.  It was awesome and I cannot wait to do it again :)