May 29, 2008

Winter is here! The rainy season has started. I thought winter and summer was determined by the months. I thought it was the same all over the northern hemisphere. But here, in Costa Rica, summer is the hot, sunny season, which just happens to come between the end of November, and the end of April. The children even get their summer holidays during this time period..
This year the rainy season came late, and it started slowly, so my best estimate would be May 18, which is very late. It caught up quickly, though. This past Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, brought half the normal rainfall for the month of May. And yesterday was incredible. I think we might have gotten the other half. Jose and I went up to Las Juntas to buy the lumber for the desk we are building. It had rained hard all morning, and I had gotten wet tying the lumber on the roof racks.
We stopped at the Jupris Restaurant in Lourdes, recommended by the ten trucks always parked outside, and verified as good food by myself many times over. Most bars and restaurants here have no walls, except for the kitchen area. We sat near the entrance, so Peaches could easily see me from the car. Just about then, the wind picked up, and we were getting soaked. We moved to a table near the centre, but the wind actually felt cold on my wet shirt, and in ten minutes I had to move to the other end of the table because the wind was blowing the rain right in. I was cold, and the cold beer didn’t help much either. By the time we got in the car, I put the heater on.
When we got home we unloaded the material, got soaked again, and took a long lunch to change clothes and have a shower. The rest of the day went well. We made a couple of sawhorses from lumber the mill gave us, and cut the first big piece of Guanacaste to shape. We got most of the big marks out with the coarse sanding disc for the grinder, and today will work with the finer discs to finish it up.
Back to the rain. The rain has continued unabated for more than twenty four hours now. The wind is almost continuous with high gusts frequent. Last night, I slept in my long pants and t-shirt, and still woke up cold at 3 a.m. I suppose we’ll get some of the inside work done this week, and wait for the inevitable nice weather to return, I hope, by next week.