The party's over...

At 11am local time the party ended. The party started early Friday evening in the house next to me. It's my understanding this was a Quinceaña, a coming of age party for a 15 year old girl. The live bands started Friday right after a thunder storm cleared. I'm not sure how many bands were involved. I'd guess six maybe seven. I do know in between bands there was a 15-20 minute period of, not really silence, but an absence of pounding bass. Other then those breaks the music never stopped and I rarely slept.

This morning when the music stopped, yet again, I glanced out to see the stage and sound system being disassembled. At first I figure another band was simply setting up. When a truck arrived and they began loading the large stack type speakers I was pretty sure the end was in sight. In a matter of a half an hour the stage, lighting rigging and sound system was loaded and gone. I swear I saw Foreigner once and they had a smaller stage, speaker stacks and light show. Foreinger also didn't play for 40 hours either.

Other then the noise the party guest were seemingly everywhere and very drunk. Not only drunk but in my opinion very rude. Early last night I found three Mexican boys sitting on the hood of my truck, each with a 40oz. beer in hand. I told them, in Spanish, "please don't sit on my truck, thank-you." They left but as they did I heard what amounted to "Fucking gringo asshole, fuck him his mom's a whore." I made sure my alarm was set. At 3am I hear, barely over the music, my alarm go off. I went out to investigate. I feared maybe the young men from earlier had decided to screw with my truck. What I found was a young couple on my truck, quite possibly having sex and it seemed completely oblivious to the sound of my alarm. I told them "get off my truck!" They finally stopped, fell off the hood and stumbled back to the party... or possibly the beach. I didn't really watch where they went, just made sure they went.

I really expected, based on other local parties I've witnessed, this party would end tomorrow morning. I've seen several of these, not at this sound level mind you, last right up until Monday morning. Usually the music stops around 6:30 or 7 am. Everyone begins throwing stuff into vehicles, people all hug each other and their gone in a half an hour or so.

Yesterday I noticed most of the vehicles had plates from the state of Chiapas, which has to be a good 15hr. drive from here. I assume this is the reason for my early respite.

I'm hoping this is the last party of this vacation season. Vacation season here in Progreso, for the Mexicans, begins July 1 and ends in a late August. My good friend here tells me the schools start up again tomorrow morning. I've been here almost exactly a year. During that year the town has been a very typical sleepy Mexican fishing village. Almost empty at times. During the winter there is a large group of US and Canadian snow birds. Then during Semana Santa (a two week Mexican Easter holiday) the town had what seemed like a lot of people. Nothing has compared to July and August.

I'm looking forward to Sept and most of Oct. hopefully my town will return to it's sleepy self. Sleep is a precious commodity. Hopefully I'll be getting more sleep myself. One can hope.