Landslides!

We returned from our whirlwind tour of the US  (10 days, three cities, one wedding) to a warm welcome from the people of Chepo.  It was really good to see everyone again after our absence of two weeks.

We found out that lots had happened in Chepo in our absence.  They had three days and three nights of nonstop rain, with lots of wind.  We definitely missed the worst weather this year.  They say that October has the most rain of any month, so it was a good time for us to be out of the country.

They had thunderstorms mixed with steady rain for the whole three days and nights.  Lightning struck a transformer, so that part of the town was also without power for a few days.  Some people also lost water during that time.  Our water comes from a mountain stream.  A small dam was built way up in the mountains, and the water from the resulting pool is piped down into the town.  When it rains a lot, sometimes the water intake gets clogged up with leaves and we lose water until someone can go up and clear the blockage.  Usually it only lasts a few hours, but I guess it was hard to keep the intake clear when the rain is pouring down.  Some people were taking showers in the runoff from their roofs.  

Another problem from the rainstorms was that we had several small landslides, mostly along the banks recently cut through by the widening and repaving of the road.  They planted grass along the banks, but it didn't have enough time to grow enough to stop the steep banks from collapsing across the road.  The main road was closed for a day when a couple of trees and a lot of dirt fell across the road.  The townspeople had been saying all along that they were making the banks too steep, and that there would be a problem when the rains started in earnest, and it seems that they were proven correct.

This is how it looked when we returned home.  Note the sunny day!

Most of the dirt has been cleared away

Ironically, this is our third day here in Chepo and it only rained a half hour or so the entire time.  It's sunny right now.  I guess we timed our visit to the US very well!

Our nice newly paved road is all dirty :(