Top 5 Noisiest Nights in Quito... So Far!

You already know from our previous posts about Quito that it's not exactly the quietest place in the world. It's not super noisy all the time, but when it is, it's annoying. Last night was one of those annoying nights (#3 on the list).

And I want to explain something before people reply letting me know that I should have called the police. It's pretty well-known that the police here are ineffectual. It's highly unlikely you'd reach anyone if you called or that they would bother enough to check anything as small as noise disturbances. Calling the police seems like one of those things that people in developed nations take for granted. At least that's how I see it after being here for 9 months.

1. House alarm

One pleasant evening, someone's house alarm kept going off, every 10-20 minutes or so. We thought maybe they were just out and would be back to take care of it by a decent hour. Yeah, that didn't happen and it continued that way through the night.

The next morning, Greg investigated the source and found it to be the marketing agency a block from our place. He knew it was them by the multiple notes that were left on its door. The alarm literally sounded like it was right next door.

2. Sound check 

I can't remember now which concert it was, but the day before a big one, some musical genius decided to run a sound check from 11 pm until 3 or 4 am in the morning. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea to someone at the time. That made for another very sleepless night for us and most everyone in the neighborhood.

3. Fireworks and then a helicopter 

Last night (or should I say early this morning) we were awoken to fireworks being shot off somewhere nearby at 5:30 in the morning. Since the clock is on Greg's side of the bed, I guessed the time to be about 3 am, which made sense in a weird way because I thought it was probably someone who came home from a wild night and decided to continue it with fireworks. When Greg told me that it was 5:30 am, I was livid from the nonsensical nature of it all. I'm pretty sure he or she racked up quite a bit of bad karma from last night's fun.

To make a sleepless night worse, there was no sleeping in because of a helicopter circling our part of town for no apparent reason at 8 am. They don't have TV helicopters here (as far as I know) so we think it was a military helicopter. Since it was only one of them, I knew Colombia hadn't attacked Ecuador or anything like that. Don't worry - that's just the running joke in our home for some un-remembered reason. I think we're pretty safe from Colombia.

4. Weed whacker 

The genius behind the weed whacker at 6:30 in the morning was our neighbors' guard/maintenance guy. He was in such a rush to weed whack early in the morning and wake everyone up within a 1 block radius. Why? I have NO clue because the rest of the day he just stands at the gate, trying to look official and staring at everyone as they pass by. I know this because I take my breaks from work and designing to look down and see if he's doing anything useful. 

Besides weed whacking at obscene hours of the morning, he also likes wielding a blowtorch at anything metal (not using any sort of safety equipment besides a cardboard "mask" - I cannot make this sort of stuff up). Sometimes he stops the gas tank guy to get propane tanks for the tenants in his building. And that's about it.

5. Everyday noises

Lastly, there are the everyday noises in our neighborhood (and in all neighborhoods in Quito). The dogs barking whenever they feel like it; the planes landing or pulling up because of the fog; the car alarms going off; the cars honking randomly. It's really excellent, I can't even begin to explain.

Concerts in Quito

No, we haven't yet been to a concert here, but we've heard quite a few. How? Because the main, open-air venue for big shows is the stadium downhill from us. Aerosmith came back in November; Mana was a month ago; and Manu Chao just came 11 days ago. Everytime there's a big show, there's usually fireworks at least at one part and it's really loud.

This last time for the Manu Chao show, they actually did sound checks (or a pre-party was going on unintentionally at the stadium - the rumors abound) between 11:30 and 4 am the night before the show. Most of our friends who live up here were wide awake because of this. I'm still not sure why they did it because the whole next day was taken up with sound checks - the joy of working/studying at home, I guess.

Greg shot this short video during one of the last concerts to illustrate just how loud it is at our place.

New Year's Eve (Late's Better Than Never)

Before New Year's Eve, I wrote a post and then abruptly lost it (although Greg said he got it ??). In any case, it would have gone something like this:

Happy New Year's! We've had a great, jam-packed year and look forward to the next one. In Munich, they light fireworks [a severe understatement as you'll see below], eat little pink marzipan pigs for good luck and drink a special fire drink (although I don't know what's exactly inside).

Now, here's what I'll add to the above statement after actually going through New Year's Eve in Munich. It's insane. From the middle of the morning on, you could hear anxious party-goers begin lighting their fireworks. Greg even saw them light fireworks in the subway station. They were not environmentally friendly or safe when it comes to New Year's Eve, let me tell you.

We couldn't even think about sleeping until after 1 am because everyone on our street had to run out of their fireworks stockpile (enough for any small town USA, no joke). On the good side, we got to see everyone else's fireworks from the safety and warmth of our home. And enjoy we did!!

People had professional fireworks - not just the sparklers and bottle rockets common on the US' Fourth of July. They had the ones that curly cued and squiggled in glittery gold; bright, hot white sparks shot from a free-standing monsterous sparkler; green, red and blue pom-poms burst, then faded into sparkly dust; and streaks of all kinds of color launched into the air. Throughout all this, Scoots thought our house was under siege and remained alert in case he needed to defend his brown blanket.

I don't think I've adequately expressed just HOW MANY fireworks there were going off. From every angle you saw, fireworks were shooting out and they were so close because they were basically were our neighbors' own private fireworks show, every 50 feet or so. Halfway through the fun in the streets, the smoke from the explosions had already settled into a thick fog, obscuring the people below us and the kindergarten yard across the street. It was that crazy.

The Germans definitely rang in the new year with a bang... bangbangbangbang... bang.