Free to Be in PV

If you ever doubt the American tourist’s astonishing lack of imagination, look no further than the requests they make of strolling musicians in Puerto Vallarta. Whether a solo musician or an itinerant mariachi band, one hears essentially two songs: “La Bamba,” and that Mexican standard whose chorus sounds to these non-Spanish speaking ears like “Wonton Avail Uh.” Despite Linda Ronstadt’s best efforts to teach us other canciones in the 80s, we continue to equate “Mexican” with Richie Valens. Or God help us, “Feliz Navidad.” I’m so glad it’s not December.

 

 

At Café Olla, a neighborhood place recommended to us by Oskar, our concierge at Casa Cupula, a table of 14 fat Americans – as if to prove my point – had just requested both “La Bamba” and the Wonton song. When the slender guitarist concluded, he approached Paul and me and asked what kind of a song we wanted – happy, sad, romantic, or traditional – we opted for “traditional.” I wanted to hear something authentic. He sang two lovely ballads (neither of which contained the word corazon, so they seemed credibly genuine). His guitar playing was straightforward, but he had a sweet voice that slipped easily into a plaintive falsetto. In the not-quite-air-conditioned restaurant, next to a tree growing in the floor, his songs were a charming distraction from the heat.

 

 

So much so that I didn’t notice the extraordinary thing right away. Here, in this cozy, decidedly mainstream restaurant, the balladeer had come up to two guys and offered to sing a romantic song. There were, according to my gaydar, a couple of other homos in the house, but it was mostly a straight crowd. The table closest to us – aside from the monster table of 14 – looked like two tattooed street toughs drinking cerveza and smoking Marlboros. Not even they seemed fazed by two guys being serenaded.

Mexico is a deeply Catholic country. If you go into any of the touristy gift shops in Vallarta, they are brimming with devotional objects: silver crosses, tin dioramas with clay saints, oil paintings of Mary, and all manner of sacred-heart-of-Jesus kitsch. Yet this city has somehow embraced the gays, pretty much universally. Without incident (or so much as a second glance), Paul and I held hands on the beach, kissed on the boardwalk, and made moon-eyes at each other at any number of upscale restaurants. Straight couples bought us drinks at beachside bars. Even the ubiquitous and relentless canopy tour and timeshare salesmen asked nosy questions about how long we’d been together and nudge-nudge-wink-winked their way through sales pitches while plying us with flavored tequilas. One asked if we planned to go to California to get married.

A cynic might say something about a gay tourist peso being as good as a straight one, but I never sensed any duplicity in the people we met. I’ve never felt safer – not even in San Francisco – to just be me. American cities could learn a lot from the hospitality of Vallarta. Maybe the hundreds of gay retirees buying condos there would have stayed stateside if some city somewhere had extended a hand and said, “Welcome home” the way that Puerto Vallarta has.

Comments

[Don]

Glad to hear you had such a welcoming experience in Vallarta. It makes everything we do worth it.

[experta en venta de casas Aguascalientes]

I find it very positive that residents have a different mindset, mexicans are very traditional and this new influence helps people broaden their minds and understand there is diversity in this world- very healthy!

[Rick]

We've had the same experience of acceptance. it's as life should be..