Ready or not the rains are here! In May you may have rain and drizzle for days on end with no break in the clouds. Imagine what it feels like when the hot tropical sun finally blazes full strength onto the steaming landscape while the humidity is pushing 100%. Yes that’s exactly the feeling!
As the rains come down the feeder streams are all pouring into the bigger rivers and the bigger rivers are flowing faster and fuller by the day. Dead trees some them huge ride the roiling current creating a serious hazard for navigation Once the river crests for the first time most of the floating debris will be gone but as long as the water remains high the danger will always be there. Sometimes animals are swept away by the rising waters. On more than one occasion we have found a sloth clinging on for dear life to the tip top branches of a bush in the middle of some backwash.
Almost without fail during the first serious rain in May (not counting thunderstorms which usually don’t happen in May) the termites fly. You may have thought your house was termite free but during that first rain you’ll find out otherwise. Out there in the jungle it is literally almost impossible to make your house termite proof. On a side note I’ve noticed that in May termites sprout wings here in Florida as well.
The tribal folks know the rains in May will bring a bountiful harvest of protein. Hundreds, thousands, probably hundreds of thousands or millions of tree frogs come down to the swamps and backwaters to lay their their eggs. Each species has a very distinctive croak but it’s all sweet music to the jungle folk. They catch them by the hundreds to cook in leaves on their fires. As is the case with so many good things there is a deadly downside to frog catching. Snakes also love frogs and where people and snakes hunt frogs together you can guess what happens. Death by snakebite is an ever present danger and catching frogs is a particularly dangerous time. I remember an incident very clearly when a frog hunter’s life was spared by the antivenin we were able to administer. Tragically others died because there was no help available.
May is when the season changes for good that is rain, rain and more rain till those rains slacken off in August. Rainy season may be a little cooler in general than the dry season but a ‘little cooler’ still means very hot. It feels just like what you’d expect in a rain forrest a few degrees off the Equator a few hundred feet above sea level.
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