TICO TALES
El Polvo, Nature’s Terrorist
Not a gangster, but can kill you just the same
Here in Costa Rica, summer is coming to an end, a summer that has been the hottest and driest in recorded history. In the southern zone, where I live, there has been no rain since mid-December — three months of dry.
My friends in the beautiful, cold, and rainy Pacific Northwest give me the side-eye when I complain about the heat. But when I explain to them what it’s like to live on a dirt road in the dry season, they begin to understand and even commiserate a little.
I get it. It’s hard to feel sorry for an expat who chooses to live in a tropical paradise. The weather here is indeed next to perfection. Except when it isn’t.
Seasons in the tropics
Because of the tilt of the earth with respect to the sun, and our proximity to the Equator, we don’t experience the same four seasons that most other earthly regions do. Here, we only have two — the rainy season and the dry season.
The rainy season normally begins in April and continues through November, más or menos. When it rains, it pours. One afternoon I got caught walking in town without an umbrella when the sky opened. I was soaked to the skin in less than ten paces.
