Rain, river and ruins

It rained hard and steadily all night and we were glad we hadn’t signed up to trudge through the mud on the golf course. Instead, the car trudged, when I car-walked the dogs to burn off some of their energy. They were so happy to be out, they don’t get much exercise when we’re not around.
 
The road was deeply scored – ruts two feet deep in places, with just enough room for a car to squeeze by. The bus can’t pass and now stops at the bottom of our road, bad news for the people in what remains of the favela that was largely razed in the 2011 floods.
 
The river was running fast and full of clayey sand. The photo shows where they stopped building the concrete channel after the floods. The huge boulders that littered the whole of the valley floor were broken up and, at this point, piled on either side of the river. It was rumoured that a dam was to be built, which was confirmed by the head engineer, whom we met when out exploring one day. We wound up walking way up the hill with him, well past the last place that cars could pass. He told us the dam would be designed to fill in 50 years. When asked what would happen in the 51st year, he pretty much replied ‘not our problem’. Humph – some solution! Anyway, five years have passed and there’s no dam–just a huge stock of boulders, ready to crash down the valley next time the waters take over. By the way, the whole valley was full of houses, on both sides of the river. In the distance, you can see the ruins of one of the structures that remains, but most of the others were destroyed in the flood or have been demolished since.