A Word About Noise

Lots of action at the airport already this morning, though it isn’t yet 6:30. I’ve watched one airplane leave eastbound and three others describing their wide arc around the bay before settling behind the bank of hotels across the way. People coming and people going. And the beat goes on. The malecon is quieter now that the holidays have passed and the large condo building north of us no longer sports youngsters screaming their pleasure in the ground level pool. Why it made napping near impossible of an afternoon! Our days pass on in their lovely regularity as some of the intense real estate action has subsided. Mark is busier than I as he fields questions, draws up site plans, or redrafts heritage reports for his Toronto/Markham/Brampton clients. I have a few sessions by Skype, though not as many as last year as my practice atrophies through attrition.

Mark’s good buddy, Phil, and his wife Sue arrived a couple of days ago for some R&R. They have taken a condo on Jacaranda Avendida about a half a kilometre from our place. It is up one of the steep hills close to an apartment that we rented three years ago for ten days in March. That Christmas we had gone to Rome and then to Cairo and the Nile but didn’t want to entirely miss out on Vallarta. It was an interesting place: spacious, airy, inexpensive, rather Spartan in its accoutrements, a challenging climb back from the lower town, and, blessed with a fair amount of traffic noise from the close-by tunnel route.

In Vallarta noise is always an issue. I can’t think of any of the eleven places where we have stayed over the years that was a universal oasis of quiet. I guess that generally the hotels were the best for noise control, especially at night. During the day the usual kids-in-the-pool sound would ricochet about the courtyard. Staying at an apartment in the town leaves one subject to a variety of interruptions day and night: territorial dogs; men trolling the streets with voices that would lead to the stage in Italy, calling out their wares – in the main “pan” (bread) or “agua” (water in multi-gallon jugs); all night partiers making their boozy way home and continuing their fun en route; roosters that note the rising sun anytime after 4 AM; enormous air conditioning units of small hotels belching and snoring close to your window; and, our most recent offender: a nearby club whose shows are scheduled for 12:30 AM and 3 AM! The insistent sound of electric bass overrides even the pounding surf. In the night it awakens one, engaging the heart and demanding a pulse equal to its own.

I mentioned the noise factor once to an agent with whom we were discussing a future rental. He just smiled tolerantly. Vallarta is a place where people come to party, he said. There just is going to be noise. He is oh, so right. The challenge is: how to deal with it. Here at Vista Del Sol we have found our accommodation. We shut down everything at bed time and put on the ceiling fan. Voila. Do these considerations seem to you petty beyond belief given the luxury of living in a winter-free paradise? You are right, of course, but it’s a bummer to face the glories of the day with eyes like slits and bags to your jowls after a night of turning and tossing! No matter. Enough said.

Check out photos of the malecon and of the soon-to-our-own condo here at Vista Del Sol at www.puertovallartaphotos.blogspot.com.