EL
NUEVO CANCUN
by Mark Chesnut
(Page 1 of 2)
Other noteworthy
hotel choices include the Riu Palace Las Americas
(no relation to the other Palace Resorts), a pristine
white confection that evokes some of the old-fashioned
elegance of the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro.
Its ornate interior is equally old-fashioned—a
dramatic contrast to the more modern style of most hotels
in the Zona Hotelera.
The 295-room Hyatt Regency Cancun reopened in
April 2007 after a $20 million renovation, with a conceptual
style they call “Cosmo-Chic.” All guestrooms
now have LCD TV, MP3 alarm clock with CD player, and
new linens and furniture.
Sure, Cancun still sells its share of
tacky t-shirts (my favorite reads “For my next
trick, I’ll need a volunteer and a condom”),
but it’s getting harder to find this kind of kitsch,
thanks to the city’s increasingly style-conscious
shopping.
Most of the name brands are concentrated within the
largest malls, all of which are in the Zona Hotelera.
La Isla Shopping Village, an upscale open-air shopping
center, has recently expanded to include more than 250
stores, restaurants, and attractions. This is a good
place to pick up brands like Zara, Lacoste, Diesel,
Miss Sixty, and Tommy Hilfiger, to name a few—and
you can also visit its aquarium, its multi-screen movie
theater, or just take a seat at the waterfront pier
for one of the best places to watch the sun set over
the lagoon.
Plaza Caracol Shopping Center is home to a branch
of Envy (which stocks Boss, D&G, and Ermenegildo
Zegna), plus a variety of jewelers and Ultrafemme (which
sells cosmetics and fragrances from Biotherm, Estée
Lauder, and Clarins).
The granddaddy of upscale malls, Plaza Kukulcan,
remains the best known. It’s now home to Luxury
Avenue, a “mall within a mall” with vendors
stocking Clinique, DKNY, Montblanc, Coach, and Louis
Vuitton (and in case you need some refreshments, there’s
a Baskin- Robbins that charges a whopping $6 for a BR
Blast).
When it comes to dining, there will always be restaurants
like Señor Frogs, Hooters, and some other less-than-elegant
chains that offer a bite and perhaps a shot, but Cancun
is also home to an impressive array of upscale eateries—both
within the hotels and along the main strip.
Visitors savor fresh seafood at Lorenzillo’s,
scenically set on a pier in the lagoon, and La Dolce
Vita, which also specializes in homemade pasta.
Puerto Madero is the place to sample Argentinian cuisine,
while Pericos is one of the top places for an upscale
take on local Mexican delicacies. To make the dining
experience sweeter, head to Chocolate City, a
new restaurant that opened this year at Plaza Kukulcan.
The $45 price includes dinner, a drink, and a circus-like
show with acrobatics and music—and plenty of desserts
and drinks with chocolate, of course.
For lighter fare, check out the gay-friendly (and partly
gay-owned) Club Sandwich, located on the first-floor
of the same building as the gay bar Karamba—perfect
for a light dinner before heading to the gay bars in
the city center.
For all its natural beauty and big-city
excitement, Cancun has yet to build a reputation as
a gay destination—probably because it doesn’t
have the infrastructure of gay-focused hotels, nightlife,
and tour operators that are evident in places like Puerto
Vallarta and even Acapulco. Still, Cancun has a gay-popular
beach—Playa Delfines, near the Hilton—and
a reliably enjoyable gay club scene in the city center.
“Cancun could be a gay destination as big as—or
bigger than—Puerto Vallarta, since we are in a
privileged location close to Miami, which is a major
international hub,” says Juan Ortíz, the
owner of Karamba and Glow, two of the city’s biggest
gay clubs.
“Unfortunately, the government has not seen it
like that; there is a lot of ignorance, but we are working
day by day to change the situation. In fact, we have
been doing the Cancun Gay Festival for five years, every
May. The Cancun Gay Festival is becoming a classic
for the city, and it’s attracting more international
attention.”
There is also a small but growing gay pride celebration
in June. “For the past two years, it has included
a small street march, with the permission of authorities,”
according to Ortíz. “Some people participate
with costumes and signs, but others don’t, for
fear of being recognized. At the end of the march there
is a party, either in Glow or Karamba.”
Ortíz, a Mexico City native, moved to Cancun
in 1989 after studying business administration and hotel
and restaurant management. At first he worked for a
hotel in Cancun, but then he had a better idea. In 1994
he opened Karamba, a partly open-air gay men’s
dance club that continues to be one of the city’s
gay hotspots.
Since Ortíz arrived in Cancun, “gay life
in Cancun has changed,” he says. “It’s
more open than before, but not enough to convert Cancun
into a gay destination like Puerto Vallarta. The [tourism]
authorities have not understood that the gay market
is a very good option for Cancun, and we don’t
have much support from them to plan events or to have
an ‘official’ gay beach.”
Still, gay and lesbian travelers can have a good time
here, and weekends provide lots of nightlife excitement
(take a taxi or hop on the R1 city bus to get downtown,
where the gay bars are).
In 2004 Ortíz opened Glow, the newest
and largest gay dance club—just around the corner
from Karamba. This darkly lit, two-level dance club
spins high-energy electronica every weekend, with accompanying
laser lights (and, if you’re lucky, a drag or stripper
show). The cover on Friday is about $6.
A bit further down Avenida Tulum is Picante, a much
smaller bar with a tiny dance floor. Many locals look
down on it as tacky and cheap, and populated with a
less-than-classy crowd. One local, Manuel, put it this
way: “It’s not the nicest bar, but it’s
a great place to go at the very end of the night. You’ve
got every kind of person there: men, women, gay, supposedly
straight, transvestites, and drag queens. It can be
a lot of fun.”
Some local gays go to large mainstream clubs as well.
These include Basic, a bizarre white blob of
a building that floats above the lagoon in the Zona
Hotelera, and Pop, located downtown, which plays
dance music and also hosts live music. Just a few steps
away from Glow, Roots Jazz Club is a small mainstream
venue that serves Caribbean cuisine and hosts live music
and art shows.
Like everyone else, gay life suffered from Hurricane
Wilma. “Wilma was a terrifying experience,”
Ortíz recalls. “Karamba disappeared completely,
and it was a very hard blow to overcome, since we didn’t
have insurance and we had to put our own money into
rebuilding it. Luckily nothing happened to Glow, so
we could [devote] eight months to remodeling at Karamba.
Now we are trying to return to the level of visitors
that we had in Karamba before the hurricane, but we
realize that it may take a couple more years.”
In addition to more business, Ortíz is also hoping
for greater rights for gay people in Quintana Roo, the
state where Cancun is located. “Now there is a
bit more openness and respect for homosexuals,”
he says, “not only here in Quintana Roo but all
over Mexico, since two states of the republic have authorized
the Ley de Sociedad de Convivencia, which in reality
is the right to marry your partner and obtain the same
benefits as any heterosexual couple. We hope that by
the end of this year this law will be accepted in the
state of Quintana Roo.”
FIVE
THINGS ABOUT CANCUN
1. Get on the bus. The city’s frequent, 24-hour
bus system is efficient and much cheaper than a cab, so
why not? Keep small coins and bills under 20 pesos to
pay the six peso, fifty cent fare (about 65 cents, U.S.).
2. Avoid the spring breakers
(or seek them out). Depending on which you prefer, here
are the guidelines for finding them or staying away
from them: College spring breakers are most common in
Cancun between February and April, and during that time
are most likely to stay at the cheaper, all-inclusive
resorts.
3. Don’t think that Cancun
represents all of Mexico. As the largest destination
in the country for foreign tourism, you won’t experience
real Mexico just by sticking to the Zona Hotelera tourist
area. Take day trips to the magnificent Mayan ruins
to witness the glory of Mexican history.
4. Meet the locals—even
if they’re not. You’re likely to hear as much
English as Spanish on the public buses and at the shopping
centers and restaurants. Even Cancun’s Mexican
residents are mostly from other parts of the country,
since this is a relatively young boom town. “People
25 and under are really the first generation of modern
Cancunenses,” one taxi driver tells me. So ask
locals where they’re from originally, and learn
something about other parts of Mexico!
5. Try out some Spanish. The
thousands of people who work in Cancun’s tourism
and hospitality industries are impressively fluent in
English—but they’ll greatly appreciate any
effort you make at speaking Spanish.
[Published:
December, 2007]
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