Our only reason for spending the month of August in Ajijic was to take a break from the Mazatlan summer heat. However, we liked being in the heart of the village of Ajijic so much, and being able to walk everywhere, that we reserved an apartment again for next summer in the same little apartment building. It’s much easier to find a vacation place in the off season of summer, it’s the rainy and green time of year, and restaurants aren’t crowded.

I mentioned in my previous post how so many of the buildings are painted with murals and that I would show you a few pictures. So before I go on, here are a few:

Before we bought our condo in Mazatlan, we rented a small apartment near the center of the city. We could walk to restaurants, the big mercado (market), doctors, dentists, beauty shops, bakeries, you name it, and so we got out every day without having to drive anywhere.

Then we bought a condo on the long malecon facing the ocean. There are no shops to walk to and no good restaurants near us. But that’s not the real problem. It’s the noise. Daytimes are peaceful but when the sun goes down, the revelers come out in force. I thought that buying a condo on the 11th floor, actually the 14th, because there are 3 levels of garages above ground, would be quiet. On top of that, the previous owners had upgraded the windows, and put in two sets of rolling storm shutters on each front window. There are swarms of a certain type of motorcycle that only appear at night that have made modifications so that they are extremely loud and make popping noises. Then there are several places that rent off road Rzr type vehicles with loud sound systems. To make matters worse, cars with enormous speakers park behind our building at night and have street parties. The police do chase them off at 11:00. It is so loud that there is no place in our condo to escape the noise. The walls feel like they are shaking. Carnaval week is known to be loud but it’s nothing compared to what I just mentioned. We loved having a front row seat to Carnaval in February and look forward to it again soon. But then there is motorcycle week in April when a few thousand bikers party on the malecon all night long. We were told that it’s best to leave town during that event and we did. But then truck week caught us by surprise when there was a battle of the Banda type music bands playing in the Central Park behind us with their bass turned as low as it could go. That was #1 the worst. 

I don’t mean to be a complainer but it’s hard enough to sleep when we get older and this turns us into do-nothing zombies the next day. I don’t know what we are going to do but can’t envision spending the rest of our lives suffering with the noise.

It’s frustrating because I adore our condo and it’s the easiest place we have ever lived in. It’s difficult to find a 3 bedroom roomy condo but we did. Listening to ocean waves 24/7 is priceless. This place is so well managed and maintained and the pool is one of the biggest and nicest in Mazatlan. We have spent the past year painting, buying all new appliances, repairing what didn’t work, buying sound blocking curtains (not effective), upgrading bedroom windows to double paned laminate windows (not effective) and next month the glass company is going to insert another pane making them triple paned. After that, we are at a loss.

Oh yes, and there is a baseball stadium behind us. Baseball games in the US are rather quiet. Not here. They have loud music before the game, every time someone picks up a ball, bats a ball, catches a ball, drops a ball. Ok, I am exaggerating. But we love the fireworks that occur usually once a week. And baseball season doesn’t last forever.

How can we give this up? What to do? What to do?