Sounds of Loja

I was sitting in a cafe, and the sounds drifting up was the sound of the eagles hotel California.

Across the street from the school is an appliance store.  On of there best sellers is this real big and UGLY Sony system.  It has 5 or 6 k watts of sound…. With massive sub woofers.  They play it loud to attract customers…usually lady gaga or some Spanish rap.  There are 1 or 2 tunes they play I don’t mind.  There has been complaints from the school about the noise…. I think we have reached a truce.

I hope the person who came up with the car alarm and the order the obnoxious sounds that play gets royalties.  I know if they were paid a fraction of a cent for each time an alarm went off in Loja, they would never have to work again.

The alarms are set so low that a passing loud bike (Harley ) sets them off.  It is not uncommon to hear a bike go down the street and hear car,after car, after truck’s alarm going off.

And then there are the people who don’t know how to turn off there alarm… They open their door and stumble for minutes trying to turn them off.

This is the first place I have been where the garbage trucks sound like the good humor ice cream trucks.  They drive around the city playing this little tune out of a loudspeaker.  It lets you know that you have to put out your garbage.  It is neat to see the 3 or 4 guys on the back, running ahead or behind the truck, grabbing garbage and then running back to the truck…they really have to be in shape to run the amount they do.

It may seem strange, but Tokyo with its much larger population was a quieter city then Loja.

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