Michael: Every Knows it's Windy

The spider came clean
While I dried my hair leaving
Me alone to groom.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

We arrived this year in Volcan January 19, right in the middle of the non-hurricane season. That’s suppose to be one of the big selling points of Panama, they’re out of the hurricane zone, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get very, very windy here.

Books and blogs discuss living here for up to a year to see if you can tolerate the rainy season, but the rainy season, at least this year for us, was a joy. It’s the wind that’s unsettling and now we know when it begins. This year it was Friday, December 19, which means we have until the end of February to experience the full force of the windy season.

Unlike the rain, which at the most, only lasts for a few hours, the wind here is a constant. It may die down into a breeze for a while, but in the evening it builds up a good head of steam and will go from a continual bluster to occasional howls. It’s like being in the Wizard of Oz without ever being knocked out and waking up and it’s calm and beautiful. No, Dorothy, it’s Volcan, Panama, and everyday for over the next two months, you’re going to wake up (if you can sleep) and it’s going to be damned windy outside.

But there is a way out. If we head north for two miles toward Costa Rica the winds die down. Similarly, heading south, once you’re outside of the city limits of Volcan, the winds also dissipate.

We like it here in Panama, but the winds here in Volcan at this time of the year have us considering moving just a smidgen to get out of wind tunnel.