Despite the passage of time, I am occasionally reminded of my foolish comment – ‘we have lots of time to go for a walk before the storm arrives’. It was mid-December 2015 in Pocitos, a river suburb of Montevideo.
After a long period of relative calm with cloudless skies and balmy temperatures, Mother Nature decided that Montevideo was overdue for a reminder of her raw power. One could sense that a storm was coming – for several days the temperature rose, the air was heavy and humid, and sleeping without the air-conditioner blasting away, was a struggle.
A major storm was forecast to pass through that afternoon, but I thought that we had time for our normal walk on La Rambla, along the river. When we set out, the dark clouds were already gathering. It soon became quite dark and then the pyrotechnics started. At first the interval between the lightning flashes and the sound of the thunder was long and the storm distant, but the wind rapidly strengthened as the storm approached. It was noticeable that the normally raucous birds were silent.
We had only gone perhaps a kilometre, when the rain started, first light, then a little more persistent. We sheltered behind a large palm tree.
‘I think it is getting lighter’, I said, and then she saw the wall of water slowly approaching from behind us.
We started back to our apartment, but the rain suddently became horizontal. We each tried to shelter behind a palm tree, and that helped, until we found ourselves standing ankle-deep in a soup of dog turds.
Finally, the wind dropped and we started back, thoroughly drenched. The streets were knee-deep in water, and we now understood why the pavements were so high above the street and why the drains looked as if they could swallow a horse.
Then the sun came out and once more all was well in Montevideo.
The Irish Rover 