The next morning, we trotted a kilometer up the PanAmerica to the center of town. Once there, we learned there were no bus tickets to Nicaragua. Sunday is Nicaraguan Mother's Day. Since half of Nicaragua's men seem to work in Costa Rica and all of them apparently love mama, there were huge lines at every bus stop.
"We have no tickets until Saturday," we heard everywhere.
At our hotel, we managed to hire a car to the border at a perfectly larcenous rate, but it soon got worse. It started raining. Hard and steady. It continued to rain all day and into the night.
By morning, parts of the hotel were ankle deep in water. On the TV, we learned that an extremely rare—once in 100 years—early season Pacific tropical storm, Alma, was laying off the coast pouring rain onto the country. Soon rivers had broken through levies, and whole towns were under water. In San Jose, there was an frightful bloodbath on the highways (Costa Ricans are horrific drivers.)
Somehow, the idea of standing for hours at the border during a tropical storm, along with the entire mother-mad nation of Nicaragua, was too much. We canceled our car and spent the day watching the news.
There were the usual images you see of people paddling boats down streets of submerged houses, dogs stranded on rooftops, hundreds of wet, miserable people being handed out sandwiches in school gymnasiums. Then, there were the bland public officials assuring everyone that due to special measures taken since the last round of heavy rains, everything would be different this time. Don't worry! Teams are in place! Help has been dispatched to all affected areas! We have called up the special reserve units (whatever it is they do)! Cooperation at national and regional levels has been extraordinary! Everyone is working very hard (with the exception, perhaps, of the bland public official, who is doing nothing)!
Then the news cuts to the Man Who Has Lost Everything. He is standing in a T-shirt and shorts with rain pouring down his face, while Jose, a reporter in a sparkling new poncho and freshly oiled hair, draws near.
"What happened?" asks Jose.
"I lost everything," says the man. He begins to explain how his whole house was inundated by the flood and what little possessions he had were swept away. But suddenly there's an interruption!
Why it's the news anchor, and he has something very important to say. "Jose," he says, "That is a very sad story, and we hope everyone prays for him. But right now we have to go to some amazing footage of a man rescuing a dog from a tree."
And so it went.
The pictures here are from our last watery debacle, when we were in Chiang Mai, Thailand and it rained for about a week. The river that runs through town jumped its banks leaving the entire city in knee deep water.
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