Salon Wanderlust | Landing the Big One

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T A B L E_T A L K
World travelers discuss going where the tourists don't in Table Talk's Wanderlust area

R E C E N T L Y
Arigato, Nagano
By Cintra Wilson
Weird TV, naked hot springs and the big heart of Japan
(02/24/98)
Tara and Michelle are great and I am a worthless protozoa clinging to their skates
By Cintra Wilson
(02/23/98)
Lost in Nagano
By Cintra Wilson
Our correspondent's innocent search for the men's slalom turns into an amazing half-day odyssey
(02/20/98)
Figure skating shocker
By Jonathan Broder
Lipinski upsets Kwan to take the gold. What happened? Skating expert Christine Brennan analyzes events on -- and off -- the ice in Nagano
(02/20/98)
Flying away
By Cintra Wilson
I sold my soul to the scalpers to watch mechanized super-teens Michelle and Tara kiss ass?
(02/20/98)

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Feature archives

LANDING THE BIG ONE _|_ page 2 of 3
Cabo No. 2: Party!
It was nearly nightfall, Saturday night, and tiny Xapoteca children in Cabo's tourist center shoved little dolls and candy hearts at us. Men stood in plywood booths shouting, "Information? Información? Auskunft?" They had brochures for hotels, snorkel trips, charter boats, craft stores. The college students were pouring in. What was here for them? Why had they come? Perhaps because of the 10 restaurants in town with "shrimp" in their names: The Drunken Shrimp, The Crazy Shrimp, The Happy Shrimp, Shrimp Bowl and Shrimp Platter and Shrimp Factory, Shrimp Connection and Shrimp Store and Shrimps 'R' Us and Shrimp-O-Rama. There is also a Planet Hollywood and a Hard Rock Cafe. For this, and other things, the new Cabo makes no apologies.
The students move through a well-insulated little circuit of bars beginning with Cabo Wabo, then Cocomo, then moving on to the Giggling Marlin and ending at Squid Roe, which doesn't close until 3 a.m. "What you see in Mexico stays in Mexico," one Squid Roe sign read. Port towns -- Provincetown, Key West -- tend to make that promise. People will do things they won't do at home. House tequila slingers climbed on tables, placed a greasy hat on a patron's head and forced them to down huge shots sprayed from a bota. The girls on the dance floor looked ready to take their shirts off. Money moved quickly. Pesos, dollars, credit cards. On our way home, we passed groups of teenage American girls trying to talk their way into Planet Hollywood. They were turned away.
That shocked me. I had never seen the law enforced in Mexico before. There are a million regulations on the books in Mexico -- zoning, anti-pollution laws, electoral safeguards -- a mirror of our own legalistic system. But they are routinely ignored. In a country with a multibillion-dollar drug industry and an infant mortality rate so much above ours, who's going to worry about water conservation? Was a new attitude creeping in with American money? Perhaps not. I watched two traffic cops in Cub Scout-blue uniforms pulling over cars. Some got tickets. Some didn't. A skinny man in a button shirt approached me (I'll call him Armando). He had family in Brooklyn. I spoke Spanish so well. My girlfriend was so beautiful. Were we Italian?
Armando was a hustler. He worked out of a sidewalk booth, and his job was to offer tourists a rental car discount in return for their having breakfast at his employer's hotel. I still don't quite see how it worked. Much of Cabo is under construction, and you learn to accept works in progress. He gestured at the cops and rubbed a finger in his palm. I asked him how this all had come to be. He rubbed his hands together again. "Drug money? NAFTA money?" I asked. He laughed. He pointed to the illuminated globe of the Planet Hollywood sign, one of Cabo's tallest buildings. Planet Hollywood money. Hard Rock Money.
N E X T+P A G E+| Hooking the Big One


- - - - - - - - - - T A B L E_T A L K World travelers discuss going where the tourists don't in Table Talk's Wanderlust area R E C E N T L Y Arigato, Nagano By Cintra Wilson Weird TV, naked hot springs and the big heart of Japan (02/24/98) Tara and Michelle are great and I am a worthless protozoa clinging to their skates By Cintra Wilson (02/23/98) Lost in Nagano By Cintra Wilson Our correspondent's innocent search for the men's slalom turns into an amazing half-day odyssey (02/20/98) Figure skating shocker By Jonathan Broder Lipinski upsets Kwan to take the gold. What happened? Skating expert Christine Brennan analyzes events on -- and off -- the ice in Nagano (02/20/98) Flying away By Cintra Wilson I sold my soul to the scalpers to watch mechanized super-teens Michelle and Tara kiss ass? (02/20/98) Browse the Feature archives		LANDING THE BIG ONE _\|_ page 2 of 3 Cabo No. 2: Party! It was nearly nightfall, Saturday night, and tiny Xapoteca children in Cabo's tourist center shoved little dolls and candy hearts at us. Men stood in plywood booths shouting, "Information? Información? Auskunft?" They had brochures for hotels, snorkel trips, charter boats, craft stores. The college students were pouring in. What was here for them? Why had they come? Perhaps because of the 10 restaurants in town with "shrimp" in their names: The Drunken Shrimp, The Crazy Shrimp, The Happy Shrimp, Shrimp Bowl and Shrimp Platter and Shrimp Factory, Shrimp Connection and Shrimp Store and Shrimps 'R' Us and Shrimp-O-Rama. There is also a Planet Hollywood and a Hard Rock Cafe. For this, and other things, the new Cabo makes no apologies. The students move through a well-insulated little circuit of bars beginning with Cabo Wabo, then Cocomo, then moving on to the Giggling Marlin and ending at Squid Roe, which doesn't close until 3 a.m. "What you see in Mexico stays in Mexico," one Squid Roe sign read. Port towns -- Provincetown, Key West -- tend to make that promise. People will do things they won't do at home. House tequila slingers climbed on tables, placed a greasy hat on a patron's head and forced them to down huge shots sprayed from a bota. The girls on the dance floor looked ready to take their shirts off. Money moved quickly. Pesos, dollars, credit cards. On our way home, we passed groups of teenage American girls trying to talk their way into Planet Hollywood. They were turned away. That shocked me. I had never seen the law enforced in Mexico before. There are a million regulations on the books in Mexico -- zoning, anti-pollution laws, electoral safeguards -- a mirror of our own legalistic system. But they are routinely ignored. In a country with a multibillion-dollar drug industry and an infant mortality rate so much above ours, who's going to worry about water conservation? Was a new attitude creeping in with American money? Perhaps not. I watched two traffic cops in Cub Scout-blue uniforms pulling over cars. Some got tickets. Some didn't. A skinny man in a button shirt approached me (I'll call him Armando). He had family in Brooklyn. I spoke Spanish so well. My girlfriend was so beautiful. Were we Italian? Armando was a hustler. He worked out of a sidewalk booth, and his job was to offer tourists a rental car discount in return for their having breakfast at his employer's hotel. I still don't quite see how it worked. Much of Cabo is under construction, and you learn to accept works in progress. He gestured at the cops and rubbed a finger in his palm. I asked him how this all had come to be. He rubbed his hands together again. "Drug money? NAFTA money?" I asked. He laughed. He pointed to the illuminated globe of the Planet Hollywood sign, one of Cabo's tallest buildings. Planet Hollywood money. Hard Rock Money. N E X T+P A G E+\| Hooking the Big One