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Lovely ladies in lovely outfits. The music doesn’t quite do it for me, but my ‘mute’ works and I hope yours does too. Enjoy.
Meanwhile in Mexico
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When you think of Mexico, what do you think of? If it’s not something like this, or tacos, you might want to rethink.
A Walk on the Wild Side Part Dos
Having done a daytime walking tour of one of Medellin’s red light districts, my friend Gus and I decided to give the area a try in the evening. On our daytime trip a few days before, we had both noticed a number of bars where working girls seemed to hang out, quite a few being on a section of Carerra 53 between Calles 53 and 54. This isn’t the only street like this in the larger area between Parques Bolivar and Botero, but we thought there were enough places there to give us a sample of what it was like at night.
We certainly weren’t disappointed in the number of street girls both on the streets and in various bars. Not surprisingly, there weren’t any 10s, but there were a few chicas that didn’t look bad and we were thinking that maybe we’d sit down in one of the bars and have a beer, maybe chat with a girl or two. That was the plan, at least. Things didn’t quite turn out as planned.
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The problem we encountered immediately was that every single bar had the music turned up to eleven. Loud hardly describes it. We struggled to find a place that wasn’t excruciatingly loud, and I can’t say we really succeeded. We did pick one of them and sat down at a table. It was mildly interesting other than the loudness and the heat inside. But it was obvious before the first beer arrived that there would be no interaction between either of us and any of the women inside. Either of us could have picked out one of the chicas, led her outside and tried to strike a deal for a quickie, but the idea of actually talking to one inside was out of the question. We couldn’t even understand each other yelling across the tiny table, let alone conversed with one of the putas in Spanish.
I did see one place that had some potential for me, personally. It was a bar up front and a billiard parlor in the back. The volume wasn’t bad and although there weren’t a bunch of prostitutes hanging out there, there were plenty walking by and I feel reasonably sure I could invite one to sit and have a beer with me.
Gus and I gave up on the bar idea after my first beer and decided to go the strip club route at Conejitas, which was just a few short blocks away. I’ve mentioned the place before and like before there were some attractive chicas there and the place was only moderately loud… still quiet enough to actually communicate if you didn’t mind raising your voice a bit. All in all, nothing much happened that night. I feel it is my duty to point out that this area is pretty seamy. We felt reasonably safe that night, but there were plenty of drugged out and homeless types scattered about and some of the people we passed, even some of the hookers, were quite high on the unpleasant aroma scale.
But that was our walk on the wild side at night and I may go back again some late afternoon or evening. Or maybe not. Time will tell.
A Walk on the Wild Side – Part 1
A friend was visiting Medellin for the first time, and he finds the seamy side of things interesting, as I do. Before he arrived, I had been in some of the unsavory areas of Medellin Centro, but I hadn’t really done more than a few brisk walk-bys. My friend, whom we we shall call “Gus,” is either more motivated or simply braver, but he wanted to explore an area like this, mostly just out of curiosity, and as I was also interested, we made a couple of sorties into one of the ‘caution advised’ areas.
Our first trip was in the afternoon. We started out in Parque Bolivar, just a few blocks away from the Parque Berrio metro station. It was mid afternoon and it had been raining a bit, so there wasn’t much going on in the park. We took a left at the top end of the park, near the church, and in less than a block we encountered our first street walkers. As expected. We wAfter eren’t looking to hook up with anybody, just to ‘sight see,’ so to speak, so we kept walking and just took in the scenery.
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After walking around a few blocks, I talked Gus into stopping in a little bar to just watch things from a sitting position. Gus agreed, though he doesn’t drink. I ordered a beer and sat back to watch the scene. There were a half dozen or more working girls (and guys, depending on how you want to call it) hanging around. Some were rather obviously female, some rather obviously trans and some that were questionable. Most of them left us alone other than trying to make eye contact. I was sort-of in the path to the restroom, so the ‘girls’ passed by rather frequently. A few would say ‘hi baby’ or some such or maybe touch my shoulder, and others just passed by.
For the sake of research, I bought one a beer for one who seemed female, if not exactly attractive, and had a conversation with her. She turned out to be rather dull and I can’t say I got much for the dollar I spent on her beer. Gus had a little better luck with another one that he went over to talk to after buying a drink for her (or him, it was one of the questionables). He was quoted a price of about $7 plus maybe 5 for the room for a BJ. He wasn’t really interested other than to get a price check.
We left after about 20 minutes, and went off to have an early dinner. He was tired, as it was his first full day in Medellin, so we parted after dinner and I went home. I apologize for the mundane nature of this post, but I am just setting the scene for more interesting stuff to come about the wrong side of the (metro) tracks in Medellin. The nest episode(s) will get into a lot more of the nitty gritty. Patience!