Groundhog Day or the Biggest One Yet

It often feels like “Groundhog Day” here. For those of you who have not seen the 1993 movie, Bill Murray plays a weatherman stuck in a time warp where the same day (Groundhog Day) is repeated ad infinitum. Because only he is aware of the situation, he initially takes advantage of the situation, but eventually he finds the true meaning of love and breaks the cycle. For us, the Groundhog Day syndrome only applies to the temperature, but it is definitely happening to us. Day in and day out, the temperature doesn’t change. It is hard for us to believe that it is close to the middle of October. We are missing the clues that nature gives us back home, like the changing of the leaves.

Nevertheless, every day is not the same. Last evening we were watching TV in our bedroom when all of a sudden the bed started shaking. At first we thought it might have been the wind since we have had howling winds here the last few days. But then the bed started shaking big time and the windows started rattling. As we realized it was an earthquake, we waited for it to end, but it seemed to just keep going and going. It felt a little like an amusement park ride, except it seemed to grow in intensity and there was no way of knowing when it would end.

This was the third earthquake we have felt since we arrived. In the middle of September, Jim had felt a 5.1 while at work. He vividly remembers the ceiling mounted TV’s swaying along with other noises. The four gringos in the room (including Jim) had eyes like saucers, while the Ticos remained calm and quickly checked their web enabled phones for the epicenter and intensity information. They soon announced that they considered it only a tremor.

But the quake last night got their attention because of the intensity and duration. The USGS registered it as 5.9 on the Richter scale, with its epicenter about 20 miles north of our house under the Poas volcano. Even though there was no damage to house or belongings (our house is made of cement covered steel reinforced concrete blocks) and no reported damage in the news, we would just as soon not have a repeat experience.