Rainstorms in Costa Rica

Katie D.

August 7, 2011 - 3:18 PM

This trip, I am experiencing pure, un-troubled vacation for the first time in at least five years. This is a time without schedules or goals; without bothers or worries; without anyone to please but myself and my easy-traveling mother. (Easy traveling in most ways, although her first act in Central America was to pour herself a glass of cold tap water.) Basically and essentially, I am on vacation. These blogs are the only piece that is required, the only task with a due date. And even that is a joy and a marker, and not a burden.

Here in Matapalos Beach, Costa Rica, it is the Green Season. What that means, if we're being honest, is that it rains like the dickens here. So we've ordered our days such that the mornings are adventure times, and the afternoons are for quiet time on the beach if there is sun, or on our lovely balcony if there is rain. This blog is being written amidst a beautiful late-afternoon shower, which has interrupted my reading time only enough to send me in search of an overhanging roof and an electrical outlet. Glory, glory.

The second night of our trip, I experienced something for the first time. During a furious downpour, complete with thunder and lightning and pounding surf, I had a massage on the porch. Massages have always seemed to be slightly wasteful and decadent: halfway between luxury and foolishness. But it was all luxury that night, listening to the waves and feeling the masseuse press the stress and worries straight out of my skin.

The night after that, another rainstorm saw us through a fabulous dinner in "downtown" Matapalo, at the Express Del Pacifico Bar y Restaurante. The owners, a lovely Swiss couple, chatted with us and grumped cheerfully at each other in French while they cooked our dinner right in front of us. Susanna even rushed out into the rain to pick two leaves of basil from her garden for the finishing touch to the first and most delicious salad I have had in weeks. The main dish was fabulous fish cakes, made of marlin from the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, cooked to perfection. After thanking our chefs profusely, we set off through the storm to get back to our beachside cabin, only to have the rain double. So we plucked some giant leaves from a small tree on the side of the road, and slogged home through puddles and fireflies with umbrella leaves on our heads.

My dad has always called nighttime rain "good sleeping weather." I'm here to tell you that rain and waves after a good meal is Heaven itself.

Here and now, as I'm writing on the balcony, the rain has slackened a little, enough for a hummingbird to come back out and zip around the flowers. The ocean is approximately 50 yards away here, and the intervening space is all palm trees and flowers. We have seen a sloth, hawks, lizards, and toucans here in our backyard. To see the monkeys we had to cross the dirt street, but they too are our neighbors here. Costa Rica, in rain and in the sunburn-inducing heat of the mornings, is a paradise to me. And here, this afternoon, in the rainstorm, I feel completely happy.