Post date: Nov 4, 2013 1:46:33 AM
There seem to be two types of street music here:
At any rate, Nicaraguan cities are not quiet places during the daytime. It doesn't help that our rented house is on an arterial street (Calle La Calzada, see map). Not that it was designed as an artery, but it is one block south of the main tourist street that is (mostly) blocked to motor vehicles and also Is the only street that runs through the center, even though it has several names along the way, all the way to the lake. We are near the corner of Martirio, another considerably shorter arterial, but one that crosses the main tourist street as well as the stream to the south.
So we have plenty of opportunity to hear, not only cars and motorcycles with loud mufflers, but also advertisers with loud public address systems and questionable taste in loud music. On the other hand, because we are one block off the main tourist street, the wandering musicians don't often come down here. When they do come, they are loud - partly because they try to be loud, and partly because the sound reverberates between the parallel masonry walls of the houses that line the street. [There are no front yards here - the houses are built to the sidewalk. Any greenery is in an interior patio.]
While these walls along the street allow a householder the possibility of blocking some of the sound, we do so at the expense of a cross-breeze through the house. With daytime temperatures upwards of 80F, a cross-breeze is welcome, especially during the rainy season when the humidity is equally high. Running the air conditioner is a possibility, but an expensive one, as electricity costs five times as high as in Seattle (50 cents per kilowatt hour).
The nights are blessedly quiet. After ten in the evening, we hear almost nothing from our bedroom, which is in the back of the house. Gracias a Dios.