Then there are some other ones that are not so regular, the fellow that comes around once in awhile to pick up your large pieces of metal scrap such as old air conditioners, old batteries, and other scrap. Once in awhile there will be a truck sent around to collect garbage that the garbage men won't take (this happens very seldom unfortunately). The garbage truck comes three times a week.
Most of the vendors use their horns to announce their presence but some of them like the veggie/fruit fellows, Superior tortillas, garbage truck, tamale salesman and the newspaper sellers use pre-recorded tapes announcing their wares. These announcements are at full volume so you can hear them coming from a couple of blocks away, so there is no reason to miss out on something, unless you take too much time to make up your mind.
When we first arrived here we would go to the window everytime we heard a horn or announcement to see what was going on. Now we can recognise the different horn blowers and understand most of the announcements so we don't need to get up to look. I sure moved quick when I heard the strawberry seller coming around though. Strawberries are one of my favorites. Note: to make it simple most of the veggie/fruit sellers bag the produce and the cost is a nice round figure of 10 pesos a bag, usually with a weight of about a kilo. Potatoes were in a bag of 3 kilos. Strawberries were a pint basket for 10 pesos (10 pesos is a little less than $1.00). The other day the watermelon salesman came around, the truck was filled with huge watermelon and they varied from 10 to 15 pesos per watermelon (less than $1.00-$1.50). The landlords son had brought us up one that he was given when he was working in the country and the thing weighed a ton. Very heavy and dense, so you get good value there for your money for sure. I believe these are the veggies/fruits that are not perfect enough to export and so are sold locally for reasonable prices; but I could be wrong there. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the produce sold by these people and I purchase from them whenever they have something that I need or want.
Some days there are different people who come by. The fellow in the picture below has several old bed mattresses on his truck. He stopped at our neighbors to pick up an old spring from the inside of a mattress and put it on his truck. What does he do with this stuff? Surely he is not rebuilding mattresses. Does he clean all the material off of them and sell the metal springs inside? I have absolutely no idea. If you do, let me know.
The fancy ice cream truck that comes around, most of them are just pick up trucks with the backs covered and the ice cream kept cold with coolers, etc.. This fellow is a professional who as you can see has even spent the money to pay for the right to use the cartoon characters on his vehicle, yah right!
This fellow was painting the trim on our neighbors house, construction type things are also a regular event in the neighborhood.
So, if you are wanting a quiet place to have a nap in the daytime, our neighborhood is not it. There are always horns or announcements being heard. On the other hand in the evening it is very quiet, you have a hard time believing that you are in the middle of a city, it is so quiet.
Just some of the joys of living in Mexico. Gotta love it.
