The rainy season nobody photographs

It rains here between two and five in the afternoon, most days, from May until October. Not drizzle — a vertical wall of water that arrives on schedule, empties the street, and leaves by six having dropped the temperature eight degrees.

Everyone plans around avoiding this. I have now spent four rainy seasons on this coast and I think they are wrong.

What you actually get

Mornings are clear. The swell is bigger and more consistent than in the dry months, and the point is empty because the hostels are half full. Hotel rates drop by a third. The hills behind the coast, which are brown and hard in February, are the colour of a golf course.

You lose the afternoons. You gain the water, the price and the quiet.

What to plan around

Roads. A mountain road on the Ruta de las Flores can close for a landslide with no notice, and the eastern coast road is worse. Build slack into the days you move between places, and do not drive at night — which is advice that holds year-round.

The volcanoes are the real loss. Santa Ana is in cloud most rainy-season mornings and the crater is a grey bowl. If that hike is the reason for your trip, come in the dry months.

Nine days, one storm missed

I sat out one storm in a comedor in the village with four other people and a television showing a football match nobody was watching. Somebody’s grandmother put a plate of yuca in front of me that I had not ordered and would not let me pay for.

That is the rainy season. You cannot schedule it and it is most of what I remember about this year.