Baja, Mexico: La Paz (Day 5: 12/25, Thursday, Part 2 of 2)

We return to town and round out the daylight hours with cups of guayabera (guava) sorbet from La Fuente, a popular ice cream shop on the malecon.



Note the late afternoon light kissing that perfect pink scoop. Were that I could be that sunbeam, that I might kiss that guava sorbet...a song of guava, a singing sorbet.

Dinner that night is at Rancho Viejo, purveyors of what are quite possibly the world's greatest tacos. Eric and I order three de arrachera and three al pastor...



aaand an order of papas rellenos, a knee-quivering, earth-shattering melange of mashed potato, canned mushroom, sweet corn, cheese, and a meat of your choice.



This comprises, essentially, a meal of approximately twelve tacos for the two of us. And Eric and I hork it down with the best of them, deluging the tacos--tender morsels on leaves of recent hand-patted flour tortillas--with an array of condiments, pickled onion, salsa, pico de gallo, lime, and guac, the creamy kind they have down Baja.



Really, this post might be better served if entitled "The Agony and the Ecstasy." I'm already feeling twinges of muscle pain from my injudicious bounding into the surf, and this combination of aches compounded with my increasingly distended belly only intensifies as the night grows older.

We return to the hotel for a nap before heading out to Las Jarras, the only gay club/bar in town, and I gird my loins for the fray. I'm in pain, complete and utter pain, but I refuse to be the cock-block despite my long (never-ending, really) foray into celibacy. I gather all my inner reserves, take pill after pill of extra strength Advil and tunnel deep into my blankets in the hopes that the heat will ease the cramping, stabbing pangs.

Fast forward to Las Jarras, where they literally beg us to return after we give the night up for lost. We are two of approximately ten people in the club, including the bartender and other employees--are folks, say, at home spending X-mas with their families? I squee a little to music videos of Rihanna and Chris Brown, but evidently music videos and a walking vagina who's been downing bottled water aren't sufficient to sustain E's interest, and we head out. Wait(!), they tell us, there's a show in just a little bit. "A show?" we ask. And re-enter.

And so begins my first of a succession of three drag shows in my time in Mexico. They are, apparently, something of a mania here, and, from what I understand, not entirely relegated to the gay scene, either...