It’s been almost six months since I was laid off. Can you believe it?
I can’t! I am still trying to shake the (very bad) habit I developed at work of opening my email on my phone as soon as I wake up to see how bad my day was going to be. At least now it’s just JCrew telling me they’re somehow offering 90% off their entire site plus an extra 50% off clearance plus free shipping (I have no idea how they make money but I do love my deeply-discounted 5 inch shorts) or it’s the Democratic Party trying to convince me that the fate of the republic is in my hands and can only be saved if I make a $20 donation right this very second!!!
But also I very much can believe it! I know it’s been forever because I’ve A) done a lot of things and B) spent most of my money doing said things.
In the past six months, I went to Costa Rica, Alaska, and (our favorite) Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Mass. I also turned what was supposed to be a 10-day vacation to Mexico into a six-week solo self-discovery journey that I made up as I went along. Can you still call it a backpacking trip if your ‘backpack’ is a millennial pink Away suitcase?
This is all a long segue into me writing about Mexico again! I have a lot more stories from my travels that I want to tell you about so I’m going to. I know it’s been a while but I really only got to tell you the beginning of the journey before I got too busy actually experiencing the rest of it. (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!)
The plan is to alternate between topical WIPs about my current life and Mexico stories about my past life for a few weeks. I’ll try to think of a fun name for them — for now, this is just Mexico Pt. II: Puerto Vallarta.
EVERYTHING GAY EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
Puerto Vallarta, April 25- May 2nd 2022
I’m not not convinced my entire trip to Puerto Vallarta was a fever dream. A Fever by Kylie Minogue dream, if you will. Or even a Fever by Carly Rae Jepsen dream, an underrated song from EMOTION B-Sides!
Vallarta is like a gay Disney World. OK, maybe a gayer Disney World.
(Wait, quick sidebar – I know I vaguely look like one but I am not a Disney Gay™. I am, however, a Disney Channel Gay. I’m not going to, like, cry hugging Mickey Mouse but I will absolutely cry while doing one of my regular listens to “Butterfly Fly Away” from Hannah Montana The Movie. Also when I was in kindergarten, we had to write acrostic poems with our names and the “L” in COLIN was “Lizzie McGuire is my favorite show.” I think I was born fully-formed as the person I am now.)
When I first arrived in Puerto Vallarta, I was convinced I had made a mistake. I knew it’d be a lot – but it was a lot more than a lot.
It was immediate sensory overload: mesh and neon and harnesses, oh my! No matter what time of day you walk through town, there’s gay bars open and crowded and blasting Madonna or Rihanna or Beyoncé or some dance remix that somehow combines them. They not only sell steroids over-the-counter in pharmacies but they also have people standing outside the pharmacies trying to get you to come in and buy them. Gays line the streets, drinking frozen margaritas, engaged in a silent contest to see who can wear the wear the least amount of clothes while still technically wearing clothes. The muscle gays (see above re: steroids) always win this contest, proudly modeling the latest innovations in micro-tank-top technology.
I felt out of my element — but wasn’t I just arbitrarily deciding what my ‘element’ was?
I’m reminded of when I first started watching RuPaul’s Drag Race in college. I’d seen a few episodes and liked them, but I resisted being someone who actively watched for a while because while I was gay, I was not that gay. Thankfully, I made friends who essentially forced me to and I spent one spring break binging every episode. I loved it and was so mad at myself for not embracing it sooner.
Well, here was my opportunity to embrace it sooner. Here I was, years later, thinking “well I’m gay but I’m not this gay!” as I waded silently and judgemental-y through town. Here I was, being stupid!
Luckily, I stopped myself. I caught my sweaty reflection in the mirror (aka my front-facing camera) and I said: Colin. BeReal™ with yourself. If you weren’t this gay, why would you have voluntarily come here in the first place? No one forced you to come here! And guess what? Just like the Drag Race fans that were too gay for you, everyone here seems to be having a great fucking time! (I didn’t actually say any of this to myself but I felt it. You know?)
I was that gay then and I am this gay now and I should be so lucky! I was not about to let some bullshit internalized homophobia ruin my vacation. In the sage words of Drag Race alum Bianca Del Rio that have since become a decontextualized fixture of the Etsy Industrial Complex: Not today, Satan!
I quickly embraced PV for what it was – insanely beautiful, insanely fun, and also just kind of insane.
From where I was staying, I’d watch some of the most beautiful sunsets I’d ever seen in my life while overhearing a Miley Cyrus tribute drag show or a dance-pop remix of Leona Lewis’ Bleeding Love (banger) or a drunk, fiftysomething man’s jarringly earnest karoke of a Whitney Houston power ballad – or, as was the case most nights, all of that at one time, each blaring from separate rooftops. Puerto Vallarta: Everything Gay Everywhere All At Once.
I feel as though PV is to 30-40-50-year-old gay men what Cancun is to 20-21-22 year old straight college kids. It feels like a bunch of older gay men trying to recreate a rowdy spring break experience they never got to have. And I say Power To Them!!!
At times I did feel like the youngest person in PV but I did not let that stop me! I made small talk in the gym bathroom (not a euphemism, I promise) with a guy in a Red Sox hat who told me very casually that he splits his time between Boston and Puerto Vallarta. I can’t imagine wanting to go back to Boston after spending time in Mexico, but I also can’t imagine wanting to live in Boston as an adult gay man so, to each their own! Ok I’ll stop the Boston slander now.
LITTLE MONSTERS AND SUPER TROOPERS, OH MY!
After spending my first few days by myself, my friend Liz flew out from Brooklyn to join me. Now, surviving in PV as a non-gay non-man requires a specific type of person and luckily Liz is exactly that. I attribute a lot of this to the fact that we met at NYU, the only place that may beat Vallarta in terms of gays-per-capita.
We lived like the happy couple that we are. We stayed in this tiny, beachy apartment where the front door opened directly onto a pool, which meant that we were in the pool anytime we weren’t at the beach. HEAVEN!
The pool was a necessity in more ways than one. To get to the town/beach from our Airbnb we had to walk down a set of what felt like 1,000 stairs but was probably closer to 100. Still, 100 steps is a lot! and this was in near-constant near-100 degree heat. We may have been on vacation but we were WORKING our asses off multiple times a day on those stairs.
We developed a great routine of going to get smoothie bowls and iced coffees for lunch every day then spending the afternoon crushing frozen mango margaritas and tortilla chips while getting sunburnt and attempting to read amidst competing pop playlists blasting from every beach bar.
I keep comparing PV to Miami (but I’ve never been to Miami so I don’t think I should be doing this) because it is a very different beach experience than I’m used to. My ideal beach trip includes sitting in one place for hours, reading at least one book, and actually swimming in the water. These beaches were not that: there’s a lot of dancing and drinking and performative strolls up and down the beach to show off how hot you look in your speedo and size up the rest of the beachgoers. Turns out, this can also be a great way to enjoy the beach!
We ended up befriending another twenty-something couple (shout out Ian and David xoxo) who were visiting from San Francisco. We hit it off instantly – talking for hours about pop culture and politics and, as the ocean insists, our collective existential dread. I can almost certainly say that we were the only people on the Puerto Vallarta beach talking about housing policy (of course the ‘we’ there only includes me in the form of active listening as they are all much smarter than me).
Ian and David are huge Lady Gaga fans (to the point they had both packed Gaga merch they just got while seeing her jazz and piano residency in Las Vegas – paws up, little monsters!!!) so we had to check out the Gaga show in town, which I think we thought was drag covers but turned out to be a real singer who was very convincing despite only singing 50% of the correct lyrics.
Gaga’s was a full SHOW with costume changes and background dancers, taking us through her entire career. We had the time of our lives. We were seated opposite a LARGE bachelorette party which at first was eye-roll-inducing but as the show progressed it turned out they were very into Lady Gaga. Like, singing along to ‘Speechless’ and ‘Sine From Above’ level fandom – both songs somehow got more airtime in this tribute than anything from ARTPOP. #JusticeForARTPOP, today and everyday.
There was another bachelorette party that was having considerably less fun so this basically became a second, complementary show. Gaga on stage and then these dueling bachelorette parties in the audience. The bride at the second party looked MISERABLE, elbow on the bar, her face on her palm, her mind literally anywhere other than the (genuinely very good) interpretive dance to Million Reasons happening in front of her.
Of course, the best show we saw was Mamma Mia! The first day I arrived, I saw posters for a local production of Mamma Mia! and within minutes, I had bought tickets for Liz and I. Now, I am not even exaggerating when I say that seeing this show was one of the best nights of my life. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen my extensive documentation of this production. I was posting clips of the performance like it was a concert. Nothing I’ve ever posted in my 10+ years on Instagram (bleak!) has generated as many replies as these videos did. People I haven’t spoken to in YEARS were coming out of the woodwork to enjoy Mamma Mia! with me. As they should!
People kept asking me “HOW did you end up at this show?” and I had to be like babes, I did not END UP there. I fully sought it out and paid $20 USD for tickets; it was an active choice and a FANTASTIC one!
When you see Mamma Mia! in Puerto Vallarta, you have to suspend a lot of disbelief. The theater is very aware of this and makes it easier by bringing drinks directly to your seat during the show – shout out to our server who knew we were having a great time and kept the tequila sodas coming.
The cast was decidedly unaligned on accents: some actors were fully American, some were doing their best American accents, and some were just embracing their natural Mexican accents. The women who played Sophie and Donna could not have looked or sounded any less alike but did I care??? Not one bit!
The best thing that this show had going for it was that there was not a single straight man in the cast. Sophie’s husband-to-be Sky was played by a hairless twink who looked like he’d be more at home at an underwear party in Mykonos than his own wedding. I say this all with SO much love, respect, and admiration. We ended up meeting this guy at the beach as he was handing out flyers for his OTHER show – booked and busy king! When he mentioned he was in Mamma Mia!, Ian said something like “Oh! Colin was just telling us about how everyone in it was so gay!!!” and while I was about to defend myself and apologize for disrespecting his CRAFT, he fully embraced it and thanked us, which is just another reason why the production fucking RULED. Again – they bring tequila sodas to your seat!! They know what they’re doing!!
I’ll try to repost some of the ‘greatest hits’ on my IG story (@colxburke) around the time I send this — stay tuned!
DAY OFF IN QUIMIXTO
We did escape Gay Disneyland for a day to go tour some beaches and waterfalls on a secluded beach down the coast called Quimixto. Our Airbnb guide was a hot 22 year old and Liz and I were joined on our trek by two aspiring eGirls. The tour was clearly listed as including a multiple-mile-long hike across some sand and dirt and mud to get to a beautiful waterfall but this did not stop these girls from being their most authentic selves and dressing like Bratz dolls. One was wearing a bandage skirt and the other was wearing platform sandals. Despite this, they somehow made it the entire journey so maybe they know something I don’t!!! I ultimately did ask these eGirls to take some thirst traps of me in my speedo and they took the task extremely seriously so I am very grateful that they were on this trip.
We went to a stunning waterfall that was completely empty aside for, inexplicably, two straight couples from Tennessee. They watched in fear as I tried way too hard for way too long to scale the rocks and slide down the waterfall with the hot Airbnb guide. He made it look so easy and I made it look… so hard and potentially fatal.
The beach (which I keep wanting to call an island despite it objectively not being one) was so naturally beautiful and colorful. I’d try and describe it but I won’t do it justice so I’ll just include some photos.
THAT’S ALL FOLKS
I’m thrilled that I got out of my head and not only survived but absolutely THRIVED in PV. When it came time to leave, I really did not want to. I looked into cancelling my flight and while I decided against it, I could have easily done another week in this chaotic gay paradise.
I take comfort in knowing I will absolutely be back! Liz and I have decided our trip was so necessary and healing that it will now be annual.
That’s all for this leg of the trip, for now. I’m saving the non-PG13 details for the memoir. Until then, thanks for reading XOXO
I LOVE anything related to Mamma Mia (it's almost at the level for my love of taylor swift), and that's so cool you got to see a local production of it!! this is by far my favourite posting - love the chaotic energy, photos and all-around vibes (okay, fine... it's because Mamma Mia was mention it's automatically my new fav) 💞 have a lovely weekend :))