An inquisitive old fart with a camera
The end of the veranillo, or little summer, rolling in from the west ahead of Nostalgia Night. Which is really just an excuse to party in the middle of winter, since much of the pop music played on the radio in Uruguay is at least twenty years old already.
Zero degrees Celsius this morning (32° F). The sun made quick work of this frost on the car, as it did last year and the year before.
Yesterday our neighbors from the campo stopped by in town, commented on how cold it was, and taught me a new saying: Julio los prepara y agosto se los lleva. July prepares something and August takes them. Huh?
Old people, they explained. The two coldest months of the year.
féria winds down
mellow light of autumn fades
boy kicks soccer ball
(féria: weekly street market)
In almost 4-1/2 years here, I’ve seen lots of rain, but never this: the tosca, road-building material made from soft sedimentary rock, has become so saturated in many areas that it acts as mud. Ride into that on a bicycle and you’ll regret it.
After I wrote the above, my wife mentioned that just a couple hours ago she got stuck in exactly this place—in the car. Had to rock back and forth to get free….
A substantial portion of the Rambla (beach road) washed away, and as soon as the rain paused, everyone wanted to see it. It’s not the first time, but the worst I’ve seen.
At a parking area now completely unusable, water pouring through and over the boardwalk.
Heading home.
On January 31, I drove out Route 11, which most directly connects Punta del Este, summer glitterati HQ of the southern hemisphere, with Colonia, embarkation point for the quickest ferry to Buenos Aires. It marked the second biweekly turnover of holidaymakers, and the road appeared to be a river of black license plates in both directions.
The ones inbound picked poorly: they have anything but beach weather since. But yesterday it got hot, almost Paraguay-hot with humidity. When I took the top photo it seemed to me the pine tree was sweating as well. And here we are today.
A Uruguayan told me the other day that summer here used to mean temperatures in the 80s Fahrenheit. Not this summer. Not last summer.
Part of me is a little more convinced there is no normal anymore. Cambio climatico, as they say here.
From suffocating heat last couple days to this, at 9:45 AM on what thousands of visitors expected to be another sunny day on the beach….
…except that it’s December.
The season officially starts in two weeks, at which point I’ll have to take the dog to the beach first thing in the morning, or not at all.