image via Lisa Town

Mexico City captured my heart with it’s wonderful chaos during a brief trip in 2006. I instantly knew that I had to go back, but for a longer period of time to get to know the city a little better. In 2007, I got an opportunity to live and work there for three months from August through October. While a personal vacation to another place can be insightful, you can’t really understand a place and the richness of the culture until you have lived there and experienced what a typical day is like. It is then that you begin to tune in to the music of the city.

The gigantic metropolis of Mexico City with its enormous population can seem at first chaotic and overwhelming with so many different sounds coming from every possible direction. But when you stop to listen, you realize there is a musical infrastructure that runs through the urban environment. Every noise has a purpose and every day is a different song.

image via Carl Campbell

The first thing that always comes to my mind, and this might sound sill but, it is the garbage truck. That truck was the source of much frustration and laughter for me, as well as anyone in Mexico City. It was just endlessly fascinating to me. There was always this huge window of time when the truck could come, inevitably the worst possible time causing a flurry of grabbing trash bags at the sound of the bell and running out to chase the truck. Sometimes the truck wouldn’t come and my roomate and I would walk to work, carrying trash bags hoping to see the truck on the way but usually going to chase it through the neighborhood. I learned quickly that wearing heels in Mexico City was not the best idea.

image via lpbaraldi

In addition to the sounds mentioned on the audio track, another one that I would here in my neighborhood were the guys that sold the gas. My friend called them the ‘Three Tenors’ because three guys would belt out the word “gas” in different tones. So on gas day they’d go singing through the neighborhood… “Gas…Gaaaas…GAAAAAAAAAAS”. The amazing thing to me was that the huge gas tanks were always on the tops of the buildings which were several stories high, usually with no elevator. So one guys would throw a full one his back and carry it all the way to the rooftop and exchange it for the empty one to put back on the truck.

During the work day we’d hear many things going by the office window. Like the tamale vendor with the famous warbly recording which can be heard all throughout the city…

video via Lisa Town

Throughout the city there is a buzz of little green bugs zooming along in the streets. It doesn’t matter the location, residential or the heart of the historic district…they are there. My very first experience flying down the street in one of these things was scary and I almost couldn’t watch and then every time afterwards was more and more fun. The best was when I rode with enough people to have two bugs and we were zooming down the freeway passing each other and swerving around in the lanes. I remember my driver had so much play in his wheel that he was constantly over-compensating. It all felt like a movie chase scene, except that we were on the same side.

I also enjoyed trying to see how many people could stuff into those things. Three adults is really the max (not including the driver), but it is possible to get five in there. Oh, the things you could never get away with in the US!

image via stevecadman

Aside from the cheap and fun taxis, another popular way to get around is by metro. The system has it’s own set of sounds, both from the cars themselves and the vendors that frequent the aisles. While they can be annoying with their horribly loud and poor quality speakers blasting your ears out, the unspoken system is impressively coordinated. As one vendor gets on, one gets off and there are never two in any one car at the same time. Typically they are selling music or dvd’s which they advertise by walking through the people, playing the music or showing off the dvd with a portable player.

image via joe holmes

Then if you ever feel like you need to just get away from the city, you don’t have to go too far. At the edge of the city there is a lovely place called Xochimilco (which I will write a more extended post on at a later date). You can escape with a trajinera and a bucket of iced beer into the canals and just kick back and enjoy the natural scenery sail by while listening to sounds of birds and local musicians. Who knew you could find total serenity here, in the largest metropolis in the world?

image via Lisa Town

video via Lisa Town