The next stop for our group is dinner. Like everything else on this trip, dinner starts late, generally after 10:00 or at times 10:30. We’re going to take the van from the theater to a truly authentic Mexican restaurant downtown. The plans quickly hit a snag because Latin crooner Juan Gabriel is giving a free concert downtown and the entirety of downtown Puerto Vallarta is closed off for it. Our driver, Marco, waves a hand at this and tells us not to worry. He talks with a couple of armed policemen standing near some barriers preventing cars from traveling down a road crowded with people. After a minute or so, Marco shakes hands with the police and the two officers remove the barriers. Marco inches the van forward and starts honking the horn at the people in the street. It is like something straight out of Grand Theft Auto; the side street over flowing with people that Marco is attempting to drive through. I feel assured that you could get arrested by pulling the movie Marco does in every state with the possible exception of Alabama.
Another problem arises when Lisa with a ‘Y’s Explorer isn’t allowed to follow Marco’s van. After more dialogue, the police soon allow Lisa with a ‘Y’ to follow. With no other cars around, parking is a breeze. We get out and go to the restaurant. This little “authentic” Mexican restaurant is flawlessly designed and would look at home in on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The noise level is amazingly high. With hard wood floors and smooth, stucco walls, it is an acoustic nightmare. For the first half of dinner, Peter and I, who are sitting next to each other, have a hard time hearing Darius and Rachel, who are sitting on the other side of the long table.
Dinner at the authentic Mexican restaurant continues when the waiters bring us… bread. “What the hell is this?” Peter asks. “I’ve never been to a Mexican restaurant that serves bread.”
“Mexicans serve bread,” Darius comments, “They just call it ‘chips’.”
As the evening wanes on and the restaurant starts to clear out, the noise level becomes more tolerable and the conversation picks up again. Darius can’t get over how bad the movie was that night. Peter is stuck on the bread and I am shocked at the small portion sizes of the main course. I turn to Natalie, a 40ish blonde from Phoenix who also ordered the mahi-mahi, “This is the best 4 ounce steak you can get in Puerto Vallarta,” I tell her. She laughs and asks, “You really think we got 4 ounces?”
As we eat at more and more of the restaurants that Lisa with a ‘Y’ represents, I begin to take notice of the smaller and smaller portions. By my third day, I am actually taking pictures of the plates before eating. Helping nothing is the Puerto Vallarta restaurants strange fascination with extremely large plates. Measuring no less than 16 inches across in certain cases, the plates do nothing to hide the three smaller shrimp I am served.
Dinner concludes and we begin to walk back to the van, surrounded by scores of people coming from the Juan Gabriel concert. Fireworks are going off on the beach and we are engulfed by locals. Though there are tourists at the hotels, there are none venturing into town to hear Juan Gabriel.
It doesn’t look like we’ll be getting back to the Sheraton anytime soon. A tightly packed swarm of people streaming down the main Puerto Vallarta thoroughfare stand between us and the Sheraton.
“We’re going to be here for a while,” Natalie says.
I don’t agree. I think Marco’s going to pull off something here that is going to redefine ballsy.
Natalie shakes her head. “No…” she says.
“I think he’s going to start moving forward,” I say. “And I’m gonna tell him I’m proud of him if he pulls it off.”
“He can’t do that,” Patrick says of Marco. “It’s—“ And Patrick is cut off as the van begins to move forward. The people in the street are rather naturally upset at Marco for cutting them off (and in certain cases bumping them) with the van. As Marco continues to inch forward through the crowd, the people begin slapping and tapping the side of the van as we pass them. Marco pays no heed to this as Peter yells out the window, “We’re just passengers here!”
More tapping. The people start to bang a little harder. Marco revs the engine slightly and the next thing we know, the crowd parts and we’re through, on our way back to the Sheraton. Marco earns mad props. The occupants of the van begin clapping for him. He waves a hand in the air as acknowledgement and returns his attention to cutting off a cab that is barreling towards us.
Back at the hotel, everyone but Rachel, Peter, Darius and me is going to turn in. The four of us grab a cab and head back into town. Rachel says she knows a great bar in the area that we should go to.
Touching on a conversation we had earlier, Darius reiterates that he can’t believe Jeffrey was talking about how the Mexicans, as a whole, don’t like sucking gringo cock at lunch.
“I still can’t believe I didn’t hear that,” Peter chuckles to me.
“You were sitting next to me,” Darius says. “And you cut him off at just the right time, how could you have not heard?” I shrug. Darius shakes his head and says, “The guy nearly yelled that he can’t get any guys to suck his cock, I thought everyone at the table heard.” We didn’t.
After closing out the bar, we pay the bill and get ready to head back to the hotel. Rather than grab a cab, we choose to walk.
Arriving back at the hotel, I assume I will just crash—it’s nearly 4:00AM and we have to be up the next morning at 8:30. But I don’t. I watch some Family Guy and finally fall asleep close to 5:30.
