Since they began keeping records in the 1800s no hurricane has ever made landfall in Costa Rica. We came close a few years ago with one right at the tail end of hurricane season, but as of today we can boast of being a safe from hurricanes. That’s at least how I promote the country when organizing exchange groups.

Recently, a group of high school students visited Costa Rican students for two weeks to really find out what the pura vida was all about. They had excursions, school visits and family outings all planned for the trip and everything started out true to form. No delays getting in, an excellent first day trip out to a tropical beach island, all followed by getting to their families and spending a day at the host school.

All was well as the following day we had a coffee tour in the morning and the weather couldn’t have been better. In the afternoon we went to the zip line canopy tour, where students would fly through the jungle on a cable. I had done it many times before and was excited for them as it was overcast and a bit foggy, which makes the experience even better.

I had sent them on their way and was just settling down with a cup of coffee to wait for them when I heard a tap. It was like a tap on a snare drum. Except it was coming from the roof and it’s the first sign it’s gonna rain. 99% of roofs are metal and not insulated so the rain is heard just as much as it’s felt. When it rains heavily it inhibits nearly all conversation, and forces you to turn on subtitles or crank the volume on anything you’re trying to watch.

Those taps became more frequent and eventually became a full fledged orchestra. I wonder how the group is doing out there? I already knew the answer (wet) and about an hour later it was confirmed as the downpour had not stopped. As they arrived off the last line the only thing that wasn’t rain soaked and drooping were the smiles on their faces. That’s the spirit, I thought. At least it’s not snowing (they were from Wisconsin).

What was a great adventure to end the day was only the beginning though. We got on the bus to head back to the host school, but it wasn’t long before we came to a standstill. Heavy rain from before caused a landslide and the road was blocked. Not a big deal in most countries, however in Costa Rica there is really only one road that connects places and detours are hours long. I was a little dejected, but once again the students didn’t seem distraught. Aside from some wet feet, spirits remained high. 

On our way to the detour, the roads were crowded and slow because of the rain. It was then that families began to send pictures and videos of bridges that had washed out and rivers that had flooded. 

At that moment, the host school wasn’t accessible as bridges on both sides had washed out or were closed in an abundance of caution till the rains subsided. Our chances were looking pretty bad and then were officially dashed when a landslide closed the detour we were on. Students wouldn’t make it back to their families that night. Luckily, I was able to find a nearby hotel for the group that night, got them fed, and their clothes dried.

Once the excitement/commotion of the day had died down I decided to turn on the news to see just what the heck had happened with all this rain. I expected them to lead with the rain, however they were looking 5-6 days out at a hurricane that would potentially make landfall in Costa Rica. 

5 years ago I would have sulked and spent multiple nights sleepless, however I could only smirk at this next challenge mother nature was throwing at us. Over the years, weather has added drama to the exchange experience and it sometimes feels like a long running TV series or saga like the Fast and Furious or Avengers movies. 

The most epic “battle” ever “fought” in our series was during the 2019 Wisconsin January exchange when a polar vortex stranded some students nearly a week before they were able to get back to Costa Rica. Next up was the pandemic that took us underground and now, it looked like a hurricane would be the next installment of the series, a first time exchange weather event on Costa Rican soil. 

The forecast projected landfall Friday evening and we were to expect heavy rain and winds for a 24 hour period. The amount of rain in that period was expected to be about a month’s worth of precipitation. Thankfully, we still had a few days to prepare and the next day we got everyone back to their families and managed to squeeze in another excursion before the weather got bad. 

The host school went remote the rest of the week, which unfortunately meant the cancellation of a school dance students were looking forward to and then all schools in Costa Rica were closed on Friday out of an abundance of precaution. 

As the days went by the anticipation grew. However, the storm began tracking north and it was now only expected to make landfall as a tropical storm. We were still on high alert and when Friday became Saturday, the vast majority of the country only received standard precipitation for this time of year. There were definitively rivers and towns that flooded, but in sparsely populated areas and not near the intensity as the last time we had a close call with a tropical storm. 

The exchange ended 4 days after the storm and besides getting to the airport a few hours earlier than normal to account for any colossal detours, the trip back uneventful. Still all smiles and the only upside down ones were from saying goodbye to their hosts. 

I was relieved as I thought our landslide and improvised hotel stay was only a preview of worse things to come, but ended up being a bonus and probably one of the highlights of the trip. The storm ended up making landfall in Nicaragua, which preserves Costa Rica’s status as never having a tropical storm/hurricane make landfall in the territory. 

With the changing planet, it’s likely that Costa Rica will one day have a hurricane make landfall, but it’s still way too soon to judge its visit-ability based on weather and as long as it snows in Wisconsin, the hurricane risk is well worth it.

A year ago, I wrote about living through the polar vortex with 80 Costa Ricans in Wisconsin on a high school exchange.

It culminated in our return flight being canceled, which didn’t bother our visitors but created a horror show for me trying to rebook everyone.

So this year, after a white Halloween and a green Christmas and with twice as many people, we had to be ready for anything.  It’s a good thing we were, because misfortune would be after us again.

We had set up flights to Chicago on back-to-back days, and our Day 1 flights went fine. The next day, the first group would tour Chicago and then travel to Wisconsin along with the Day 2 Chicago flight arrivals.

I was the caboose on the Day 2 flights, connecting in Houston. Our other Day 2 flight was a direct flight that left just before ours. All was well until I started getting messages right before boarding about a snowstorm moving into the Wisconsin-Chicago area that evening.  I didn’t get a chance to check the weather before service cut out, but as soon as we hit U.S. airspace, I was able to watch The Weather Channel’s live report on the storm on in-flight TV.

Chicago looked bad.

I checked the direct flight’s progress, and it was looking good until about 30 minutes outside of Chicago. That’s when the flight path took a sharp right – and was now headed for Cleveland.

Oh man, here we go again.

I got all this information before touching down in Houston, so I was ready to hit the ground running. But we had less than two hours to clear customs and get to our next gate with 40 teens and teachers, half of whom had zero experience in making a connection like this.

Lucky for me, I had my smartphone, which would prove to be life-saving in so many ways.  We were stuck in line at customs for almost an hour, which would have been torture in most cases, but knowing my group was unable to wander off, I got to work fixing issues.

One of the first messages I received was from one of the host schools saying not to send the bus to the high school because they had cancelled all after-school activities. It must have been sent when I was without service, as it was really too late to do anything based on where the bus was at that point.

I quickly called another high school that was also receiving a group from the same bus. I explained the situation, and those families agreed to each take in an extra student for the night until the weather improved.

Awesome!

So I had them taken care of, with a second bus en route from Chicago to Madison making stops along the way. Other than that bus being about two hours behind schedule because of the weather, everything was good.

I had no means of getting a hold of anyone on the flight that was now headed to Cleveland and just had to watch for updates from the airline.

The customs line was really long, and on top of that they took two of our students aside for further questioning. So we were still advancing when it was announced that our flight would be delayed 12 hours, until the following morning.

That was stressful news for the teachers and Costa Rican parents to take, as they were already on edge, being only day one away from their children. For me, this was just another sigh of relief and the students… they were the least stressed in the matter.

We would have been crunched to make the connection even with what initially had been a one-hour delay, and these delays were much better than the cancellation last year.  I’d gladly spend the night at the airport as I couldn’t fathom rebooking 40 people on a smartphone.  In the end, we got to Chicago the next morning, almost the same time as the Cleveland “direct” flight.

I couldn’t help but think this was a leftover gut punch Mother Nature didn’t get a chance to unload on me last year. There hadn’t been any winter this year until I decided to fly.

But it could have been a lot worse.

I think of all the little things – like having upgraded my phone in October, having a SIM card ready to go upon U.S. arrival unlike prior years, having the inflight weather/flight status and flying a Big 3 airline rather than their hubs.

I had families ready for deployment at a moment’s notice, so much so that the ones ready to take in an extra student for a night never got the chance. Once word spread, the families from the first school drove to the other school and met their students there.

After the exciting arrival, the weather went back to being dormant and didn’t play a factor the rest of the exchange.

I definitely deserved that; I just hope I didn’t use up all my good weather credit for next year.

UPDATE JULY 22ND: While the weather was great for exchanging in January, the pandemic has completely shut us down.  Thankfully nothing happened mid-exchange, but we’ll be on the shelf till at least summer 2021 and won’t return to Wisconsin till January 2022.  By then we’ll be well rested and excited for anything that comes our way.

March 11th.  That’s my date.  That’s when it became real.  I wasn’t even in Costa Rica, but the NBA postponing their season was the tipping point for me.  Three days before I had been telling my volunteers and exchange students not to worry about the situation and that worst case scenario Costa Rica might close schools for a few weeks.  I told them that Costa Rica lives from tourism and closing the airport would be a doomsday scenario and would be a last resort. Little did I know that would be the last face-to-face contact I would have with them.

Within 10 days of that conversation I had traveled to the US and all those doomsday scenarios had come true.  Programs were halted and all my participants were on planes back home. I was still scheduled to be in the United States another week yet, however with the speed that things were moving I couldn’t risk borders closing or cancelled flights.

I decided to shorten my trip by 5 days, and return the day after Costa Rica closed its borders to foreigners.  I have residency so I wasn’t affected and after hearing about the 8hr immigration lines when they closed Europe, I thought better to avoid any panic traveling.

My biggest fear was getting stuck in the middle of my trip, unable to make a connection due to a border or airline closing.  I had one connection to make in Panama and I had no idea what I’d be arriving to in Costa Rica as so much had changed in 10 days.  Feelings ranged from ho-hum, all the way to giving my wife a big defeatist hug, like Tony Stark when he returned to Earth in Endgame.  So much had changed in such little time.

It all started in immigration.  I was promptly served a sanitation order to quarantine for 14 days at home under the threat of jail time.  It was advised that I not even stop at the supermarket to pick up food on the way home as the order was already active. When I got into town, physically, San Ramon hadn’t changed, but my perspective had.  While my programs screeched to a halt, the rest of Costa Rica hadn’t come to a standstill. It didn’t matter though. My brain was set to doomsday mode. I went for a walk that afternoon in the field behind my house and it was eerie.  Doomsday mode opened my senses to everything going on around me. Every rustle in the grass, every sound from the birds was washing over me as the new normal. These were the same sounds I heard every time I went for a walk but this time the atmosphere just felt different.  Lifeless, abandoned, or even post-apocalyptic.

I’d spend 14 uneventful days processing all of this.  Most days I’d try to figure out what movie/show I was living in real life.  If I was ever at a loss, I’d just fire up Netflix and look for something to compare my situation to.  Luckily, the quarantine was not a huge sacrifice for me. I was not infected (as far as I know) with the corona virus and experienced no symptoms.  My wife was able to go to the store for me and I had no one to care for outside my dogs.

After completing the quarantine I decided to venture out to see what I had missed.  14 days is nothing in corona virus time and San Ramon was all but on lock down. Everything had closed except essential services and there was a car curfew in place.  Places that were open restricted entry and enforced a 6ft radius. Going to the supermarket I didn’t see many things out of stock, except for some cheese. Lines were longer than usual and clerks were wearing masks.

Wow, how things had changed though.  I was now living what I’d seen on the news the last few weeks, but not all was lost.  Social distancing, safer at home, and lock downs have all been promoted/enforced throughout the world during the pandemic.  The message’s intensity has been consistent in most countries, however there has been differences in its effectiveness across countries.

Costa Rica I’d say has done remarkably well in its efforts to control the spread to this point.  While it’s really hard to say why they’ve done well, there are a few noteworthy exceptions in comparison to harder hit countries.

In the month since our first recorded case, growth has been very consistent at 20-30 a day.  There haven’t been medical supply shortages and the government recently opened a new hospital that only receives corona virus patients.  They have 88 beds and at its opening there were only 10 people hospitalized for the virus in the whole country.

It was painful to shut the borders and tourism is going through a never before seen “zero season” as in $0 revenue.  There have been some rescue packages put together and the public healthcare system has slashed premiums 75% for the next three months.  There’s even talk of imposing a solidarity contribution (read: tax) on high income earners to help the unemployed and their families.

Since March 11th my world hasn’t been the same.  It’s been an adjustment, but I haven’t had a problem staying home.  It feels so little in comparison to what health care workers are going through, but there could be worse places to be stuck in.  My spirit remains high and I can only hope we’ve seen the worst of the pandemic and that better days will be ahead.