Baja, Mexico: Cabo (Day 7: 12/27, Saturday, 2 of 2)

The evening's spent chasing elusive (and we find out later, shuttered) gay bars: Rainbow Room and the Hangover.

Traipsing around town, up and down dark alleys, in and around tourist hordes, past restaurant promoters and "street merchants" peddling their soft and hard drugs, I'm hating on Cabo.

Cabo's a horror show.

Cabo is for spring breakers and ugly Americans in cargo pants and polo shirts, bleached blonds and black polyester and that particular kind of ugly orange that some white people get when they're too tan.

Cabo's for club-crawling, and saying yes to overpriced merchandise in brightly-lit storefronts on the strip; yes to muttered proffers of ganj and coke and what have you, yes to Cialis and yes to hillibilly heroin.

Part of it is my already dimmed mood, I'm sure, but I can't imagine enjoying, even on a good day, this Cancun 4 Grown-ups.

But I've been feeling guilty that Eric hasn't gotten laid on this trip--can it be that I'm not only my own best cockblocker, but for others as well?--so it's chin up and legs in the air, metaphorically speaking.

An hour or more, trudging the strip, the empty back alleys, rear entrances of hotels, looking for a gay bar, which, as it turns out, is actually the gay bar because, apparently, a provincial, isolated town the size of Cabo can only support one watering hole for homosexuals? I funno.

My feet are tired from flip flopping up and down dark streets, but my impeccable and implacable sense of duty (to Eric's sexual gratification) keeps me going, and it's only until Eric tires that we turn back to the hotel. Let's get the car, I offer, and give it another shot.

And there it is. We've given up, and there it is: a mere five blocks from our hotel. Goddamnit.

Las Jarras, yes, the same name as the one in La Paz (is it a chain of Mexican gay bars? Like Blimpies?). Chagrined, we get up in there, and try to make up for lost time. I have whatever Eric's ordering at the bar, and I dunno what it is about dudes and their need, regardless of who they prefer to sex (hehe), to get me fucked up.

One thing leads to another, and we strike up a friendship with a London transplant to SF, Paul, who's there with Omar, who fills me with chills of apprehension in his pathetic and frenzied attempts to be sexy by rolling the "r" in his name. O-marrrrrrr, he says, swaying ever closer.

Drunkeness. Time telescopes. We step outside for cigarettes and a breath of fresh air (yeah, yeah, ironic), when I experience the luxury of my first time being gay-bashed. A pick-up lurches past the bar and someone throws a full can of beer at us, shouting, "Maricones" (faggots). I'm lucky enough to be in the line of fire and am drenched. Fortunately, I'm just wearing a teeny tunic over my bikini, and all I do is shrug it down to my waist.

This, apparently, is Miguel's "in." He's been eying Eric, and smooths on over with inquiries about my state of semi-nudity. Conversation ensues.

More time passing.

Eric's made a new friend, and Paul's using me to get away from his "little pet" (Omar), so I'm bopping on the stage with Paul and couples that are feeling sexy (even if they're not).

On another break, I go out to find Eric's disappeared.

Which is unfortunate.

Because he has my ID.

My money.

The keys to the hotel.

And.

I have no idea what hotel we're staying at.

Which is great.

Being in a country where you kind of don't speak the language that well. Not having any identification. Or any idea where you are staying.

I return to Paul and relate my state of affairs, and he promises me a place at his bungalow should Eric fail to appear.

I'm fucked, I think to myself. Fucked.

My Anti-vacation

I like this girl's website as a general, superficial, mind-numbing, consumery rule.

But the following entry is my idea of The Horror: an all-inclusive vacation.

Gah!

I mean, let's be real, it's not that I wouldn't take it over working. But still.

Maybe I'm just jealous. [grin]

Baja, Mexico: La Paz -> Cabo Pulmo -> Cabo San Lucas (Day 7: 12/27, Saturday, 1 of 2)

The early morning drive to the hotel dock doesn't bode well for Eric's planned dive. I'm to drop him off, then make my way back to the hotel, a day putzing around town, then spent in sun worship at Tecolote, a day gloriously alone.

But, no.

The water's choppy and shark-gray. Eric's not optimistic, though I'm bullishly sanguine, as if my insisting that diving conditions might be okay will make it so.

Nope.

I hide my disappointment and we're off for breakfast. Eric's been obsessed with a place called Baja Biscuits, so that's where we head. There, he has the eponymous biscuits and gravy, and I the breakfast burrito of eggs, potato, avocado, and salchicha, topped with a creamy chipotle sauce and a Mexican-style Minute Maid Orange Juice that is essentially sugar water and orange flavoring that would never fly in the U.S., let alone California.



Eric's eager to be out. I'm less so--a vacation without Rancho Viejo is no vacation at all--but tacos are hardly a (socially acceptable) reason to take up residence in a place, and the man's insistent. As a result, we're migrating south again, down the Transpeninsular, busting a left at Buena Vista to take the scenic route to Cabo Pulmo in the hopes of scallops at Nancy's, essentially the only reason to come to Pulmo, besides the coral reef.

Alas, for the coral reef, the weather's shite, and alas for Nancy's, its lunch hour and the offerings are, shall we say, meager compared to the dinner menu.



The scallops are still soaking in a bowl of water (should I have asked for them though they weren't on the menu? Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too?), so Eric and I both settle for the shrimp, which, though nice, are diminished by the stale-ish (or maybe just not freshly made) tortilla that comes with.



While we wait for the check, I manage to break the door window on my way to photograph the restaurant signage. Granted, it's a piece of cardboard propped in the sill that's simply flopped to the ground, but I'm racked with guilt nevertheless. Clumsy American.



I'm still mourning my tacos de arrachera; the dirt roads rumble past, the playas a distant, green-blue.



Finally, San Jose del Cabo, and the corridor to Cabo San Lucas.

The evening's a blur. This is the night a friend tells me, over the internet, about the untimely death (aneurysm, Arteriovenous malformation, AVM) of a guy I knew, fleetingly, in a past life. I'm bewildered and unusually quiet, and attack my meal at Lolita's in a pale imitation of my customary vim and vigor. The chicken mole, the beef burrito, the chile relleno, the chicken taco arranged on my plate go down without photographic archiving, ditto the Pacifico.

Everything's dust in the mouth.

I am, in truth, mostly jealous.

Nevada City Weekend, 3/13 - 15

Spent weekend at the house of an ex-lawyer, current farmer.

Along with one New York-based masseur/sex worker (happy endings), one current office furniture saleswoman (previously worked with Connecticut Public and had received an Emmy for a documentary), one nurse fresh out of nursing school, one SF English teacher, a couple who own a farm and rent out goats for landscaping, and another area couple.

Seven of these folks were gay men. (And I wonder why I never get laid. Fuck.)

I got to:

1. sit in a hot tub and gaze at the stars
2. get within a foot (no fence) of an ostrich
3. hug a baby emu
4. hug baby goats
5. play with a tiny kitten

I also was:

invited back for harvest season at the rate of $200 a pound (of work)

Potentially more to follow.

Baja, Mexico: La Paz (Day 6: 12/26, Friday, Part 3 of 3)

I'm of two minds when the boat, replete with divers, comes chugging into our little slice of blue-green silence--half peevish for the interruption, half eager to return to land. I'm going mad with stimuli, six whole days with nary a moment to myself and then this day of highs (real dolphins, flopping sea lions, wobbling puffer fish) and lows (imaginary sharks, a stretch of backbreaking, arm-wrenching ocean).

And I's hongry.

Lunch is served shortly after we re-board. Tuna (pepper, carrot, corn) salad sandwiches on Mexico's version of Wonder bread--Bimbo bread, ya heaaard?!

(Not my pic.)

I'm befuddled when the divers (who were, as expected, grudgingly envious of Eric's encounter with the whale shark) begin strapping back in.

A third dive? Fuckin' a. We're in open ocean now, and they're going down to a wreck. I've already psyched myself out (with help from Eric) about snorkeling and there is no way I am getting back in the kayak, so while Eric pulls off, I lay out at the prow with a bottle of un-American coke and cookies.



One of the divers has hung back. Since she and her husband are the originators of scuba diving (the way she tells it), she's over wreck-diving, and because she's also a nature photography nut, she has her massive camera out. She's wielding it like Dirk Diggler in the jaws of his meth addiction. I think she's irritated that I've seen a sea turtle but've failed to mention it quickly enough, and she grudgingly tells me the glassy circle the vanished turtle makes is called a "footprint."

She's freaking me out, so I climb down to the water-level platform at the stern and dip my legs into the placid water, snapping photos of Eric, the horizon, my contented, nay, smug and complacent countenance, granules of salt speckling my face where the seawater's dried.



I am perfectly and radiantly happy.



With folks back on board, I notice some popping in the distance, about 75 yards away. "What's that?" I ask, pointing.

It's a school of rays jumping out of the water to flop onto their backs. There's no explanation for it, the dive master tells us. It's speculated that they do it to rid themselves of parasites, but somehow it looks too playful, too exuberant for something as mundane as hygiene.

And on our return trip, flying fish glimpsed out the corner of my eye, another spin with dolphins.

That evening, we head back to Rancho Viejo for more sweet ambrosia in the form of skirt steak tacos and papas rellenos. This time, we only order two tacos each and split the papas. I've agreed to this decision, but deep down, I want that third taco on my plate, even if I know all it'll cause me is grief.

Because I'm a greedy fuck.



Eric has plans to go diving tomorrow, and I'm secretly glad to have a day to myself, already envisioning the location of my beach chair and feeling the condensation on a bottle of Pacifico in my hand.

I've fallen in (friend-)love with Eric, but this only child needs her some spiz-ace. Fer-rills.