# Inmaculada Concepción de María



## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

Well the cohetes started this morning right around 4:30AM and have gone off at least once every minute since (it is now 6:50AM). Some are just your plain old rockets but some are more like pyro-technics. We are up high so we can see them down below. They are perhaps a couple/few miles away - yet still pretty loud.

Does the number of rockets reflect the level of religious dedication ?

We live near a cemetery and when there is a burial they often use rockets (and music). Someone once said the rockets were intended to wake up/alert the heavens of a new arrival.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

The cohetes started on the 4th here, 9 days before the 12th..for the Novena--There were 35 rockets this morning..I think it all depends on the amount of money they have..there does not seem to be any logic to the noise..
We live next to the cemetary and we get the music as well. This week there were buruing a charo and all of his bodies were on horseback taking him to be burried..there was quite a procession,,


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

No cohetes in my neighborhood in Mexico City. I am far away from the Basilica de Guadalupe, so I doubt I'll hear any as we get closer to December 12, but you never know - miracles can happen!


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

When a wealthy person passes, the event at the cemetery can really be impressive. In addition to the cohetes they often have bands (with drums and trumpets etc) and even singers. The ceremony can go on for hours. It really is a good time for me to work in the garden.

I believe that cohetes are not legal in 'most' of Mexico. In one rather old 'town' near us there is an annual clash between the police and the vendors (who feel that they are grand-fathered in). It is a good thing you don't see many cohetes in the heart of Mexico City - I'll bet that would keep the bomberos pretty busy.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

Gatos said:


> I believe that cohetes are not legal in 'most' of Mexico. In one rather old 'town' near us there is an annual clash between the police and the vendors (who feel that they are grand-fathered in). It is a good thing you don't see many cohetes in the heart of Mexico City - I'll bet that would keep the bomberos pretty busy.


I'm sure there are "barrios populares" in the CDMX where cohetes are set off for holidays like December 12, but nothing like this goes on in my sedate middle-class neighborhood. Closer to the Centro Histórico, at the Iglesia de San Hipólito, the center of the cult of San Judas Tadeo, cohetes are fired on the 28th of every month in honor of the saint. I can hear them from my apartment near El Angel and the US Embassy. 

Templo de San Hip?lito - San Judas Tadeo


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

you are lucky if you do not hear cohetes..In San Cristobal when there is a fiesta at the church many cohetes endup on roofs and they expde the tiles that are cold.. I have to work on the roof every year because of the cohetes.
Here in Ajijic they are plenty loud as well 
They may be illegal but there is no shortage of them,,


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

citlali said:


> you are lucky if you do not hear cohetes..In San Cristobal when there is a fiesta at the church many cohetes endup on roofs and they expde the tiles that are cold.. I have to work on the roof every year because of the cohetes.
> Here in Ajijic they are plenty loud as well
> They may be illegal but there is no shortage of them,,


That is one advantage of living in a non-folkloric neighborhood!


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## perropedorro (Mar 19, 2016)

citlali said:


> you are lucky if you do not hear cohetes..In San Cristobal when there is a fiesta at the church many cohetes endup on roofs and they expde the tiles that are cold.. I have to work on the roof every year because of the cohetes.
> Here in Ajijic they are plenty loud as well
> They may be illegal but there is no shortage of them,,


One would think they'd shoot them off over the lake. In our coastal village, the town only extends four or five blocks from the beach, so most folks fire rockets off over the ocean, at least the ones with a brain do...but not everyone here is so equipped.


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

perropedorro said:


> One would think they'd shoot them off over the lake. In our coastal village, the town only extends four or five blocks from the beach, so most folks fire rockets off over the ocean, at least the ones with a brain do...but not everyone here is so equipped.


No bodies of water near us - well except for the swimming pool - with its palapa... Some neighbors have those vinyl (?) type awnings. 

The truth is - there are a lot of really sweet considerate Mexicans. At the same time there are some who are not. We have a close (Mexican) friend who lived near the main drag. A new cantina opened and they blast music until 5AM on the weekends - we hear it if the windows are open. She bought a new house and put her's on the market.


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## Howler (Apr 22, 2013)

*Boom!!*

I've ended up under my bed at times when the cohetes have gone off in celebration of some santo or evento. Once I fully regain my senses I have to laugh at myself, but it's still an automatic response that catches me off guard sometimes. It can be quite unnerving at times, though... New Year's Eve is another time that can get the heart pumping!

You've all given me a couple of ideas of where NOT to look for a house - as difficult as it could be - to not find something close to a nearby cantina, parque, church or cemetery. As noisy as the norm gets to be when we're in Mexico, it all becomes a background that isn't noticed as much, except for sirens & cohetes...!
:boom:


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## Rammstein (Jun 18, 2016)

Gatos said:


> When a wealthy person passes, the event at the cemetery can really be impressive. In addition to the cohetes they often have bands (with drums and trumpets etc) and even singers. The ceremony can go on for hours. It really is a good time for me to work in the garden.
> 
> I believe that cohetes are not legal in 'most' of Mexico. In one rather old 'town' near us there is an annual clash between the police and the vendors (who feel that they are grand-fathered in). It is a good thing you don't see many cohetes in the heart of Mexico City - I'll bet that would keep the bomberos pretty busy.


I live in one of the oldest and largest Infonavit communitiies in Mexico and the cohetes started in November and will continue through Año Nuevo. There are many stands on the street that sell them and the policia couldn't care less. Reminds me of my youth in the 50's in the USA when you could buy them freely. They don't bother me but my cats get scared sometimes.


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

Rammstein said:


> I live in one of the oldest and largest Infonavit communitiies in Mexico and the cohetes started in November and will continue through Año Nuevo. There are many stands on the street that sell them and the policia couldn't care less. Reminds me of my youth in the 50's in the USA when you could buy them freely. They don't bother me but my cats get scared sometimes.


I'm ok with the cohetes - but a couple of our neighbors who live at a higher elevation than us put on a pyrotechnical display that rivals Disney World. They launch these plastic balls - perhaps 3 inches in diameter - using long PVC tubes. I have to pick the hard shards of black plastic off the lawn in the morning. The windows literally shake when those things go off. On this past Friday night as soon as the first one went off I hopped in the car, drove to the neighbor's house and kept my hand on the car horn until he came out to the street. I guess he got the message because there were no more bombs launched at our roof.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

No the cohetes are not shot over the lake in San Cristobal as there is no lake and the guys in charge of the cohetes walks around the streets setting off the cohetes and we live close enough to the plaza of the barrio to get cohetes on the roof as well.
In Ajijic they do not shoot the cohetes over the lake either... sometimes they have fireworks but the infernal noise they are making now does not have pretty fireworks along with it, it is just noise for the sake of noise..It is just awful


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

Seems like we have yet another night of serious cohete launching. Especially since the sun went down there have been a ton of cohetes. This is our fourth hear here and there have never been this many rockets. Is it that rockets have gotten cheaper to purchase OR are people more frustrated with their lives and are using rockets as an outlet OR something else. 

I think next year we plan a vacation (away) during this week.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

The gardner here told me that the number of cohetes depends on the person paying for them that day.. so maybe you are having a competition...actually you probably having one of those"my cohete is bigger than yours and I have more money than you do.." so good luck..

It is one of the most widely celebrated festival so good luck about finding a quiet space..One good thin it is over today so now you can brace for Christmas and the Posadas. and then and then until after carnaval when it will be more or less quieter for 40 days


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

We get them here in Spain whenever there is something to celebrate - weddings, birthdays, religious festivals, anything that will provide an excuse. There is a fiesta in September which drives the dogs to take cover under anything convenient so tried to take our holiday a week earlier this year to avoid them but the place we went to had no aircon and the temps were 45-50 inside so we came home.


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

It finally got nice and quiet last night around midnight - even the packs of dogs we normally hear in the night were quiet (probably as worn out by the noise as we were). I turned off our loud fan and opened the window. Then at about 2AM someone decided to fire off a flurry of rockets...


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

I think they came right out of Spain.. Yes my Spanish firend here was complaining about them in Spain as well...


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

citlali said:


> I think they came right out of Spain.. Yes my Spanish firend here was complaining about them in Spain as well...


I have an idea that the idea came from further East. I think it was in Italy in the 1500-1600s that priests advocated firing rockets at thunderstorms and heavy rain clouds to prevent their drenching religious celebrations. I may be wrong, but is something I heard of many many years ago.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

baldilocks said:


> I have an idea that the idea came from further East. I think it was in Italy in the 1500-1600s that priests advocated firing rockets at thunderstorms and heavy rain clouds to prevent their drenching religious celebrations. I may be wrong, but is something I heard of many many years ago.


Fireworks were invented in China many centuries ago. I wonder how their use spread from there to the rest of the world. Any ideas?


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Good question..

Here rain is a blessing so O doubt the cohetes were meant to prevent it. Same in China, rain on the New Year celebrations is a bleaasing, or at least that is what Chinese friends told me..

They sure have lots of firecrackers during Chinese New Year..I also heard it was to scare the evil spirits..who knows if that is true too but it sure is obnoxious.. We lived right above Chinatown in San Francisco and we would get a solid month of firecrackers during the New Year as well and right in the middle of that was the church Notre Dame de la Guadalupe .. we just could not escape the racket..


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