THE FIRST GAY CRUISE TO SOUTH AMERICA -- February, 14, 2006
Mario and i walked around the city seeing most of the sights including the pink palace where Evita gave her speeches to the Argentines. The city is fairly clean and several of us remarked how few people use cell phones.
We are staying in a gay bed and breakfast run by a single guy which is nice, albeit a small place, but the owner is sweet and trying to get back into an ended four year relationship. His lover left him because he felt stifled being with only one person.
At the Hilton where most of the boys of the cruise are staying before we leave, there is a Mary Kay convention going on with at least 500 women. There are almost 500 gay men staying there too. Too easy to comment.
One of the most exciting things we did yesterday was ride the first subway in Latin America and probably the only wooden one in existence. The stations were made of wrought iron but they, and the trains, were real classics in a turn of the century style and made of wood columns, panels, etc.
We caught up with mj and bob later in the day at the Hilton, and went out for some shopping and dinner on a pedestrian street called Florida street. Street performers were doing the tango.
Prices in Argentina are very reasonable, like Mexico, inspiring me to replace my 15 year old leather jacket I originally bought in Tijuana.
I crashed early and slept a long time despite an aching hip where i got up at least four times to take an excedrin.
Hope to write more, Mario is anxious to get out on the hot and humid streets of Buenos Aires.
My thoughts are with Donna and how she is probably going through one of the biggest changes in her life.
Notes from Atlantis Mexican Riviera Cruise Aboard Carnival’s Pride, October 19-26, 2003
Ÿ A young man seen wearing a T-shirt on board that said “It ain’t gonna suck itself.”
Ÿ While passing art pieces for sale in the hallways of the ship a young man declared for all to hear: “I’m not here to buy art, I’m here to have sex.”
Ÿ At a table for lunch on the ship’s formal sit-down restaurant, a group of four and another of two were seated at the same table. Three of the group of four were complaining to the group of two about the fourth member of their party: “One is suppose to go on vacation to get away from what causes us stress, we made the mistake of bringing you.”
Ÿ At the same lunch table the fourth member complained of the women on board: “This is a gay cruise, it doesn’t say lesbian cruise. Why did they come?”
Ÿ Further along the same lunch the fourth member says: “My friends are always reading my ass.” To which another replies: “That’s because there is so much printed on it.”
Ÿ A senior passenger related the story of how, without warning, he had woken up at home paralyzed and was unable to move. He managed to crawl to the phone and dial the emergency operator and say: “I’ve fallen and can’t get up.” They both started laughing.
Ÿ A male passenger, wheeling his male traveling companion in a wheelchair around the ship’s deck, stop for a drink and they strike up a conversation with another passenger. That passenger relates some of the ship’s more lascivious activities. “I had a five way in the steam room this morning,” he says. “At night there were 13 of us in the jacuzzi. The ship’s security told us to put our suits on. Carnival personnel told them to leave us alone, after all, there’s no women pushing strollers around.” Pointing to his companion, the passenger in the wheel chair replies, “except him.”
Ÿ At lunch one afternoon an 81 year old man says that he has been matched up by Atlantis for a cabin roommate that is 85. The 85 year old came on to him, he says, and “I told him he was not my type.”
Ÿ A passenger says that last night he found out that a Eucadorean passenger’s dick was huge. Another passenger asks how big it was and the passenger says he doesn’t know exactly how big it was. The other passenger, pointing to several points in his throat says: “Was it this big, this big, or this big?”
Ÿ At the Mexican port of Mazatlan some local sailors assigned to the dock decided to have some fun with the big gay cruise ship. As the ship was leaving the dock they started adjusting and re-arranging their white sailor suits. Led on by cheers and cat-calls from the twelve-story high galley of gay men aboard the ship, they re-arranged their pants and underwear. For the fifteen minutes or longer that it took for the boat to separate itself from the dock, the boys on board taunted the boys on shore and they taunted back. One sailor even dropped his underwear and shaked his penis at the crowd.
Ÿ A retired doctor recounts his difficulties withdrawing from a post-surgery pain killer. A passenger asks that after all his years of medical training and practice did he find it easier to stay off drugs now that he was no longer a practicing doctor. The doctor said no, that did not have an addictive personality, and it had been several years since he retired. After all, “I’ve only taken the same pill twice on this cruise.”
Ÿ Finally, the same doctor related the story of how he was in bed with a 19 year old and noticed a scar on his chest. He asked the trick where he had the open-heart surgery. He said it was in the same town two years ago. The doctor realized that he had performed it and it was also the first person he had been in bed with whose heart he had actually touched.
