Morning Sounds in the Las Palmas Development

Unless you need to wake up earlier than 5 am here, you do not need an alarm clock. Just as my iPhone has a variety of alarm-clock sounds to choose among, from gentle to strident, so does Las Palmas, drawn from both the natural world and the world of human artifice. All you have to do to enter this world is to have your A/C off and the screen door to your balcony or your windows open.

Sunrise begins here a little before 6 am, but the community begins to come alive around 5 am, while it is still dark. Occasionally, the first sounds you hear might be human voices - people waking up in the dark of night to head out to the airport or to take a long tour that has an early start. But more likely, the first sound you will hear are the doves calling to each other all over the area. They have a loud and distinctive call, with a pattern something like coo-coo-ca-chooo. They start their calling around 5 am, when it is still dark, and are still the prevalent sound two hours later.

The howler monkeys also arise early and make a very distinctive, low-toned, guttural howl. We do not hear them as distinctly here, as you would closer to where one of the three troops in El Coco live. At first, I mistook the call of the doves for the howl of the monkeys, but now I can tell the difference.

With sunrise, around 6 am, the place comes alive with the sounds of songbirds. [I can just hear Julie Andrews singing, "The hills are alive with the sounds of songbirds!"] The development is surrounded by hills and there is an abundance of birds and birdsong. I do not know the names of the birds here yet, though many look like birds we might find at home - robins, orioles, warblers, grackles, and the doves - but there are way more of them here than there are back home in Massachusetts, even in the height of summer. Also, at times, you might think you are in a barnyard, as you hear the wake-up crowing of roosters, which live in Tico homes just outside the development.

Early morning sounds also include dogs barking (there are several dog owners in our immediate vicinity), people talking around the pool or swimming in it or starting an early load of laundry (theoretically we are not supposed to swim or do laundry until after 7 am, but some occasionally do). By 6:30, the pool cleaners arrive with the hum of their equipment and their conversation and soon after the gardeners arrive and begin watering and tending to the plants. By 7 am, the place is a hive of activity. It is 7:30 now, as I wind up this post, and there is the sound of very heavy machinery, drowning out everything else. This is not typical though. There is a construction project of some kind going on in a nearby unit.

Of course, if you are a person who prefers to sleep in, you can close your windows and doors and turn on your A/C, and you'll miss all of this. I wouldn't miss it for the world!

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