How to know you’re in bed with the right woman in the right place? When you wake up at 6:30 to a hard rain and you both want to rush out for a walk before you miss it.

You can easily spot tourists in Monteverde. They’re the ones wearing clear plastic garbage bag ponchos. Even in the misty-cloudy “pelo de gato” in which droplets are just swirling around any which way because you’re inside a cloud, but they don’t really get you wet, like the hairs on a cat (“pelo de gato”).

Us longer-term sojourners are not just used to rain, we embrace it. I admit that I do start out with my bright yellow Camino poncho, but ditch it as soon as we’re inside the canopy-covered glory of Curi Cancha reserve. Without the hoodie I can hear the symphony of rain splatter through the myriad layers of leaves above like a Kerplunk marble, and gratefully taste its soft landing when it finally arrives on my thirsty mop of hair or uplifted face.

“You’ll catch the death of you,” my internal grandmother voice warns. It takes effort to buck decades of northerner training to Stay Dry. Wet equals cold, cold equals discomfort and sickness. But here it’s not cold and it’s not uncomfortable - it’s free and cleansing and communal. The same rain drip-dropping on a family of 35 coati’s crossing our path splashes equally on 2 humans respectfully waiting for the last baby to catch up.

So I tell my grandma to please be quiet and listen. Consciously unhunch my shoulders. Stop pushing the wet hair out of my right eye. Sit squarely on the wet metal bench at the Continental Divide instead of perching on the edge. I’m wet, I’m warm, I’m yet another step deeper into this natural world.