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Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Hurricane Otto

Hurricane Otto is expected to touch land in Costa Rica sometime tonight or tomorrow morning (Thursday). I don't know what sort of weather it will bring to us here in Atenas, in the Central Valley. You can read more about the hurricane in the Tico Times, and they have a real time weather map.

Just in case we end up losing power, I decided to go to the store to get some extra supplies. We have the use of our neighbor's car this week and we were just about to go to her place to get the car when - blam! - a transformer in Vista Atenas blew and that was the end of that idea. We don't know how to open her electric gate when the power is off so could not have got the car out.

So I decided to walk down to Maxi Pali for the exercise and taxi home. The temperatures here have been quite cool the last few days so it was a comfortable walk, with just a bit of spitting rain.

I bought two boxes of candles, ten in each box, and a propane lighter. For some time now, we have said we should have a small, one or two burner propane stove. Our electricity can go out unexpectedly and we never know for how long. It would be nice to be able to make coffee in the morning, or heat up some soup. We have a chorreador so all we would need is boiling water. Lots of people here have full size propane stoves and that would be ideal - much cheaper then using electric stoves.

I found a one burner propane stove at Maxi Pali and I thought the price was decent (18,830 colones, roughly $38 CAD) so I put it in my basket, along with a gas cylinder. Also decided we needed a small pot to fit on the burner, so I got one of those. Also picked up extras like cat food, tortillas, some canned goods, soups, etc. We have lots of books to read and I have my New York Times Sunday crossword puzzles.

Here is our emergency equipment:

 

Jorge, one of our long time taxi drivers, picked me up to take me home. We laughed so much - talked about this and that with a mishmash of English/Spanish - today is his third year wedding anniversary (we went to his wedding). 

It's 2:10pm now, and the rain has started. We'll see what develops in the coming hours. Lots of people have already been evacuated from the Caribbean side.

2 comments:

Arlyn said...

Hope all is well. I remember reading the post when you attended Jorge's wedding. Three years already--how time flies!

Diana Miskell said...

We are fine - the Central Valley was not affected, except for a rainy day yesterday. Unfortunately, northern Costa Rica was hard hit, especially the areas of Guanacaste, Upala and Los Chiles. Southern Nicaragua is also suffering.

Three years! Stop the clock!