Noises of Mexico

Everywhere I've lived sounds different at night when the house goes still. During lockdown last year the whole city became quiet and for a brief window of time we could hear the ocean at night from our house. That shouldn't be a big deal as we only live a block from the ocean, but in Mexico it's a huge deal.

Nearly every day a car or truck with loudspeakers drives slowly up our street. They are either collecting junk or selling something or well, something else. I'm still not sure but every dog on the block makes high pitched barking noises like they're being tortured. The loudspeaker is a common advertising device in Mazatlán.

If you haven't been to Mexico you may not be aware that this country seems to have a soundtrack. Music is almost constantly playing quietly (or loudly) in the backgroud. It may be cause there are 2 music studios within a few blocks of us, but I was hearing music pretty constantly in Mexico City and in Puerto Penasca as well. It Mazatlán you hear banda music. The groups walk the beaches and play for tourists. During lockdown they went up and down the streets in our neighborhood, playing music.

Then every night that isn't a lockdown is fireworks. They set them off over the ocean and we race upstairs to our balcony to see what we can see. Fireworks are VERY popular. Every. single. night. My cats don't like it. My dog likes to see us run upstairs.

In other news, the Spanish version of my book is out and I now have started selling them here in Mexico. I need to go out to talk to bookstores, but people around here seem very excited about the book!