The Guadalupe River and the Hidden Heart of San José

San José is a river city, split neatly from north to south by the Guadalupe River, a 14-mile waterway that can flood with 14,000 cubic feet per second of water in the winter and shrink to mostly dust in the summer. Castillo describes times of wading hip-deep through the underground storm sewers of the city, amid a thousand juvenile salmon fry.