Close Encounters of the Auditory Kind.
What was intended to be an enjoyable seaside teacher TGIF at Holli's next to the Rio Pitillal, turned out to be rather surreal to say the least.
It was the usual gang, chillin' over cold Pacifico's and "pow-chowing" (that's short for power eating) shrimp tostadas and guacamole with the regular tunes a blarin' when all of a sudden a giant truck with a "cherry picker" arm arrived beside us on the beach along with a gaggle of green shirts from the "Proteccion Civil." We managed to ask one of the officials what was going down and he said they had arrived to test a new early warning device for disasters. True to his word, the arm of the cherry picker began to hoist what looked like three enormous green saucers into the air. It wasn't long before a loud female voice came over their system to announce the test was about to take place. If you remember the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and the distinct musical notes the extra-terrestrial's sounded in order to herald their kind, you'll have an idea of what was going down. You have to up the decibal count to the level of "I can't hear what you're saying" AND throw in the added sonic rumble of a giant dump truck off-loading monster-sized boulders across the river to get the full effect. They continued to test the device over and over again, each time with a different variation of tones and seeming louder until we all just looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and chalked it up to just another strange occurance. We could imagine the tourists in the adjacent hotels getting nervous and wondering what the commotion was all about and hoping a major disaster wasn't about to occur. The testing lasted about 30 minutes, after which time, Holli's rgular music was turned back on, more cold fluids were ordered, freshly grilled fish arrived and our normal conversation resumed. We all agreed it was good to know Vallarta is preparing for the next Armaggedon.
It was the usual gang, chillin' over cold Pacifico's and "pow-chowing" (that's short for power eating) shrimp tostadas and guacamole with the regular tunes a blarin' when all of a sudden a giant truck with a "cherry picker" arm arrived beside us on the beach along with a gaggle of green shirts from the "Proteccion Civil." We managed to ask one of the officials what was going down and he said they had arrived to test a new early warning device for disasters. True to his word, the arm of the cherry picker began to hoist what looked like three enormous green saucers into the air. It wasn't long before a loud female voice came over their system to announce the test was about to take place. If you remember the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and the distinct musical notes the extra-terrestrial's sounded in order to herald their kind, you'll have an idea of what was going down. You have to up the decibal count to the level of "I can't hear what you're saying" AND throw in the added sonic rumble of a giant dump truck off-loading monster-sized boulders across the river to get the full effect. They continued to test the device over and over again, each time with a different variation of tones and seeming louder until we all just looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and chalked it up to just another strange occurance. We could imagine the tourists in the adjacent hotels getting nervous and wondering what the commotion was all about and hoping a major disaster wasn't about to occur. The testing lasted about 30 minutes, after which time, Holli's rgular music was turned back on, more cold fluids were ordered, freshly grilled fish arrived and our normal conversation resumed. We all agreed it was good to know Vallarta is preparing for the next Armaggedon.
posted by Andrea J. Carman @ 8:40 AM
1 Comments:
At 7:49 AM,
Andrea J. Carman said…
There is definitely the "Clownish element" present. They turn up in the strangest places--feeding pigeons next to Papagayo? Yes, a Felliniesque atmosphere prevails.
A.
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