Friday 6 January 2017

Noise and the City (not Sexy)

If you plan to camp within a traditional small Baja town, you will have to possess a certain level of noise tolerance. Here, there are no noise bylaws...and sometimes I suspect it is a lark for local villagers to create as much noise as humanly possible.

First, Mexicans seem to actually really LIKE that maniacal mariachi music full of plaintive Spanish crooning and bouncing tuba. It is played loudly throughout neighbourhoods on a unnervingly sporadic schedule, originating seemingly from nowhere. You could be awoken on a random Tuesday morning or kept up on a late Thursday evening. It must be fun for whoever is hosting the party.

Dogs. Most Mexi-mutts are docile to the extreme during the heat of the day, but something about 4 AM causes them to erupt in barking and howling festivals. Maybe it's the over-enthusiastic roosters crowing...another lovely bit of noise pollution. They all seem timed to go off well before actual dawn. It's a symphony of yelps and cocka-doodle-doos to greet your morning.

Akin to an ice cream truck gone mad, many Mexican services announce their presence with trumpeting horns and blaring loudspeakers. So anyone in a 5-mile radius in need of propane or water will know to come rushing out to meet the truck still blocks away.

So, how to deal with the cacophony? The upside to this aural insanity is that your only actual tasks for any given day are to stumble out of bed, make coffee, pack lunch and head to the beach ;-)

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