It is normal at this time of year, late summer, for there to be rain in Paraguay.

This year however the rains have been exceptionally heavy. And in addition to that the rains have continued for many days.

It has been far more than the country is prepared for and can comfortably handle. As such there has been flooding across the country and damage to both roads and infrastructure.

The rains bought to an end the hottest of the summer temperatures and now as the last of the clouds are slowly clearing it is much fresher. The humidity which had been a feature of the past couple of weeks has also gone.

It has now rained every day for more than a week and the return of the sunshine would be very welcome.

When this weather first arrived it did so as always accompanied with thunder and lightning. Fortunately it bought no strong winds. The wind can be more damaging than the rain.

For a couple of days that was how the weather continued. Heavy rain, but nothing unusual. After the summer sun has dried the land this rain is always welcome to return moisture to the soil.

Following this rain though was a much more powerful storm front. This arrived in the early hours of the morning filling the sky with enough lightning strikes to turn night to day and thunder violent enough to disturb all but the deepest sleeper.

Very soon the storm began to unload its rain. Great large rain drops falling in such numbers and with such force that the noise of the rain on the roofs was deafening and anyone caught outside would have been soaked in an instant.

By first light the rain was still falling. Visible a a solid wall of water through which little could be seen. For many more hours the rain continued and once it did finally ease up I knew that the dirt track would have become all but impassable.

That proved to be the case as for the remainder of the day very little traffic passed my house.

The storm had effected a large part of Paraguay. News reports later in the day spoke of floods in low lying districts across the country. In one town caiman had left a nearby lake when the levels rose and headed into the town center.

It was announced to have been the heaviest storm so far this century.

In the following days the clouds did not clear but the rain became much lighter. After allowing the worst of the water to drain away I went out to see how badly damaged the track was.

The tracks in Paraguay are on the whole made of compacted sand and are inevitably lower down than the properties along then causing all the rain water that falls on the fields and must go somewhere to be funneled down into them. The sand is so compacted from all the vehicles passing by that all but the heaviest of rains do them no harm.

This though had been very heavy rain. As I traveled carefully down it on my motorbike I saw that much had been washed away.

Whole sections were little more than muddy ditches. In other places great holes had been opened up reducing a road that had been wide enough for two trucks to comfortably pass to a single narrow track. In many of the holes and ditches that had opened up water still ran.

It will take a lot of work to restore the road to its previous condition. This will be done by the council. However they have plenty of other tracks to repair as not one would have escaped damage. Furthermore priority will be given to the tarmac roads before work can begin on any of the dirt tracks.

That though was not the end of it. Any hope that that was the end of the matter was misplaced.

Two nights later another huge storm rolled in. This if anything was larger and more violent than the previous. So two of the centuries largest storms in less than a week.

This second storm fell on an already waterlogged ground that could soak up no more. And fell with such force that no drainage system could safely take it away.

I think now the track has become all but impassable. I have seen many vehicles get stuck in mud and struggle to get out. A problem that must be repeating itself up and down the track. It will be a day of two before I venture out to see how much road surface remains.

All the ground that was once grassland has become a marsh. Water that has nowhere to go sits muddily upon it and springs that were not there before have opened up to reject the water the land cannot hold.

A further problem the fast flowing flood waters caused has been to cut off supplies of running water. In Paraguay the tendency is to use plastic water pipes and only bury them shallowly below the surface. Until all the breakages are sealed no one will have water.

Compared with other in Paraguay my lack of running water is nothing more than a minor incontinence.

The second storm falling upon an already soaked land and flowing into over full rivers has caused hundreds of houses to be flooded, a number of deaths and even the main roads running into Asuncion to be cut by deep water.

Now today at last the skies are slowly starting to brighten as the sun tries to force its way through the clouds. Once the clouds finally disperse and this run of storms is over Paraguay will be a much fresher place. It will take several days for the worst of the water drain away but once it has the landscape will take on the healthy green hue of a well watered place.

A couple of weeks of warm sunshine and the only reminders of the storms will be the now dry damage they have left behind.