What the rain actually does
The picture in most people’s heads is a week of grey drizzle. That is not what happens. The usual pattern is a sunny morning, cloud building over the hills through the middle of the day, and a heavy, often dramatic downpour in the afternoon, sometimes with thunder. Then it stops.
You plan around it the way you would plan around a hot afternoon somewhere else. Do things in the morning, be under a roof at four, and enjoy the fact that the whole province smells like wet earth afterwards.
The exceptions worth knowing
July brings the veranillo, the little summer: a dry spell of one to three weeks that convinces everyone the rains have finished. They have not.
September and October are the wet end. October is the wettest month on this coast. Rain can settle in for a day or more, unpaved roads deteriorate, and river crossings need respect. Many restaurants and hotels on the coast close for two or three weeks for repairs and holidays. It is the quietest month of the year here, and it separates the people who love this place from the people who love it in February.
Why it is the honest month to visit
Anyone can love Guanacaste in the dry season. The green season shows you the version of the place you would actually be living in half the year: the roads, the humidity, the insects, the frog chorus at night, the way plans move around the weather.
That is why the first rule on the moving checklist is to visit in the green season and not just the dry one. It is the cheapest possible test of a very expensive decision.
What you get for the inconvenience
Lower prices across accommodation and flights, empty beaches, and the province at its most spectacular. It is also when the wildlife is busiest. Turtles nest at Ostional through these months, humpback whales are offshore from roughly August to October, and everything green is growing.
November is the connoisseur’s answer: the rain thins out, everything is still lush, the crowds have not arrived and the prices have not risen.
