Mexico is a Noisy Country

Mexico is a noisy Country! Everything is done at full blast. Trucks parade around the streets with huge sound systems and speakers blaring about their products, be it chickens, tortillas, restaurants or health products. Taxis constantly beep their horns to remind you to keep moving and not hold them up. They do this even when they are in gridlock traffic and there is no purpose whatever to be gained for doing it. They just do it. When you are stopped at a light and it turns green, the person behind beeps his horn no matter how quick you are onto the accelerator. Busses either play an annoying little tune to advise you of their presence or else they too beep their horn as they go down the street, just in case you are waiting for a ride and failed to see them.

Kids drive their cars around with the sound systems cranked up as loud as they will go. In narrow streets sometimes it feels as if the whole street is “thudding” to the beat of the latest Latino Rap or Hip Hop sensation (as if there is a difference), the lyrics making, I suspect, no more sense in Spanish than they do in English. In the Centros, especially on Market Day, the crowds are heavy and parking spaces few. You cannot get around without bumping against parked cars, setting off car alarms which without exception are totally ignored, both by their owners and by the crowds milling about setting them off.

Trains go by RV Parks and hotels in the middle of the night sounding their whistles way more than necessary and trucks use their engine brakes everywhere and at all hours in blatant violation of signs warning against their use. Roosters are everywhere and have no clocks or sympathy. Mexico is a noisy Country.

In contrast, if you ask a Mexican what they like about their home they will tell you “tranquility”.  It is a paradox.