davet

At least it's not the "conjugal visit to a prison" that was luridly described in these pages. Invitation or no invitation!

120 at most (unless you're really in love and made the mistake of letting that on). 100 is frequently accepted, especially on busy nights, surprisingly. Because of the competition, the guys know that the customers have asked around and know what the market price is and won't be fooled. Add 20 as a tip and they will be touchingly appreciative. The most I ever paid was 200 (pre-covid going ask of 150 plus 50 tip), because this arabian god, uninvited, came for me. It was the end of the night and he apparently wasn't saving it for some girlfriend. I've had this happen a couple times toward the end of a shift.

I haven't seen a lot of drunkenness or unruly behavior. It strikes me as a sedate, friendly crowd. It's brightly lit, not shameful and shadowy like northern saunas. Any problems seem to be of the "misunderstanding" about fees type.

Havana is much rougher travel and lacks a lot of amenities. If one is American, it also requires extra logistical and financial planning due to the embargo. As for guys, I don't notice a huge difference in attitude. You can get passionate or mechanical or both in either city. Luck of the draw. In both cities, there's a good chance the guy will cum for/on you, delivering copious juice for no extra pay. They just like cumming, imagine that. That's the major difference between the Caribbean and Brazil.

I would say Olimpo was the best sauna outside of SP and RJ. Small but well-appointed, guys were of lower quantity but same big city quality, and basic cabines were free. I would like to go back and visit the more remote colonial towns of Minas Gerais.

I used to love exploring secondary cities, but they're really hit or miss. Bad day, bad weekend, bad time of year (or a late payment to the local police) and you can crap out. I've heard various rumors about places in Joao Pessoa, Maceio, Goiania, etc.

When I was there 3 years ago, I saw absolutely nothing going on at the Parque Central, or at the famed 23 & L corner, or on La Rampa (23 from L to the Malecon). However, there was a tiny park between the Rampa and Infanta where the boys now gathered to peddle their wares. It might be what shows up on Google Maps as Parque 25 y O. By about 10 pm, it was easy to find by wandering the area (police-state Havana is super safe) because that's the only crowd around. Pickings to my liking were slim. Saw lots of cute young gays at trendy bars and music venues, though. They seemed pretty open and out and nobody cared.

From a reliable recent report, most of the guys circulate both 117 and 202 as each has different happening days. The lack of tourists means there can be no more than one hopping place on each day. From the report in November: Weekends shockingly dead at both places (could be a fluke), Monday at 202, Tuesday at 117, Wednesday at 202. There was plenty of muscle to select from, though I don't know how it compares to happier times. Meio Mundo, I believe, has been extinct for a few years now.

Goiania is in my Top 5 of next places to check out in Brazil. But then I've been there many times so, overall, it's way down the list. I assume it would be big fat boring modern city, with some weird urban planning experiment, like Belo Horizonte. The colonial towns are a plus. I would tack Goias to any trip to adjacent Brasilia, which is an urban planning experiment so weird that everybody should experience it. As with Brasilia, I'd expect Goiania's garoto scene to be small and quiet but with the possibility of finding one or two unexpected gems. Sexual excitement benefits from gambler's excitement, which requires striking out now and then. Goias is cattle country so maybe one can find something close to the cornfed Iowa look?

I would happily be a brothel wingman to any sauna-curious muscle boy!

Trust me, I have wondered and wondered. Especially the traffic-directing cops. I think that's an assignment for trainees and cadets. Yow! In general, Colombians are very friendly and one gorgeous guy after another will exchange smiles and long looks with you on the street and on the bus. It might mean nothing, but it's sure more of an opening than you'd get from in most other countries.

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Sao Luis is indeed crumbling (tourists from the richer parts of Brazil seemed especially embarrassed by it) but I thought the city was unique and charming, given its French and I believe also Dutch history. The food is distinctive. The main local dish, rice with hibiscus leaves, dried shrimp, and sesame has an unexpected Southeast Asian ring to it. I remember a tourist from another part of Brazil exclaim in delight, "Crab farofa?!" Across the bay is Alcantara, a colonial town preserved in wax: It's how I imagine Rio might have looked when some seasick Portuguese lady gets off the boat to join her colonial family in the 1700s. The Lencois is a few hours to get to, but impressive. More impressive if I had allowed myself to be seduced by a cute but most likely straight backpack boy into joining an all-night hike. In case you don't know, sand dunes are basically hills to climb. Hundreds of them, without sleep, on the spur of the moment. I wasn't as young and adventurous anymore. In June, SL has one of the most Brazil's distinctive folklore festivals, Bumba Meu Boi. Alcantara has something around the same time, which holds several major saint's day holidays. When I was in SL about 10 years ago, there was one bar+boys in an old colonial house. It didn't have any better a selection than the newer place Numazu describes.

When you went, was it the same type of working garotos? I liked Fragata because it ranged from "average looking" to stunning muscle gods (yes, plenty of those at Fragata too). The average lookers sometimes sported the biggest cocks outside of a museum of natural history. What are the good days at Fragata?

Google Maps says this has been open and operating for a while. Any reports? What is the current talent offering and what are the good days?

Hi Numazu, Any sense of what the happening nights are at each place that opened? Or is everyone competing for the weekend now?

If you travel a lot, you probably know how hard it is to answer that question. The crime statistics for Brazil are unquestionably worse than for the U.S. or most of Asia. It's a numbers game and one does not know when his number will be up. I've never had a problem acting like a stereotypical tourist (camera, iphone, backpack, shorts). However, I was mugged in Salvador - the guy flashed what looked like a crude shank and demanded by daypack. That contained the last dedicated point-&-shoot camera I owned. I've used a smartphone for pictures ever since with no problem - until that phone got pickpocketed in a different Latin country! Just be careful and smart. Accept that you may have to offer electronic sacrifices to the travel gods (and the local economy). Be really careful on any beaches in Rio. The colonial touristy part of Salvador was the sketchiest place I've seen in Brazil. On the other hand, I constantly have to remind myself to be more scared in Sao Paulo: Though the city is big, loud, and messy, I don't think I've ever encountered anything that felt terribly menacing in SP. People there seem to have jobs and things to do other than rob tourists. The middle-class Rio neighborhoods of Flamenco, Gloria, and Botafogo similarly felt more safe than the touristy ones in Copacabana and Ipanema. The smaller cities and colonial towns were never a problem.

A boy I met on the train invited me to stay with his family in the medina of Fez. They apologized for not having hot water (it was August in Marrakesh, for X's sake) and their shower was a spigot right over the squat toilet. One would stand in flip-flops on the foot placements and the water went right down the toilet, giving it an extra clean out too, I suppose. I forgot about the soldier I met while we waited hours for a transfer in an Algerian desert town. He looked like John Kennedy Jr. How I regret not taking up his invitation to his family home in Algiers.

As I mentioned, I found some action in a hammam in Marrakesh. You have to be careful and discreet and have somewhere else safe to take it. The only open sex I found in a hammam was in Cairo. Marrakesh was over 20 years ago, Cairo about 10 years ago.

The Arabs in their own country are far more friendly, warm, chatty, and welcoming. In Europe, they are just like any Westerners. Some seem sullen and beaten down by all the issues facing largely unwelcomed immigrants anywhere. It's not just about looks.

In the 90s, I played around some with guys in the Middle East and North Africa. Now that I'm older and craftier, I realize I could have had so much more sex. It was a very down-low, don't-ask-don't-tell culture but if you could handle the risk and hypocrisy (or like the excitement), there was almost too much. I chatted up a beautiful young guy in Tunis and kept running into him on the streets. I took him to a movie and my hand carelessly dropped from the armrest into his lap. His cock was rock hard by the time my crimson claw reached it. He took my hand away, but the reaction is not what one would think: "Must go to hotel," his whispered. I was young and risk averse and passed that up. In Marrakesh I noticed a buff guy in a hammam, not the usual clientele. He said he was a masseur. Um-hmm. In the cubicle he gave a desultory rub-down and had no objection when I said I wanted to give him a rub-down. Uh huh. My wandering hands, now aided by soap lather, just accidentally slipped under his boxer briefs. He immediately grabbed my hand, but guess what? "Au hammam, non. A la maison, oui." We went to a friend of his in the medina. The sex was meh, and there was a friendly little attempt at kidnapping when they blocked the door until I paid the friend the same amount for use of his den. But afterwards, it was tea and cookies. In Jordan, I chatted up a coffee-stand guy, one of the most beautiful 20-somethings I've ever known. I lost all shyness with this one and basically didn't leave him alone. The Arabs have such a deep culture of desert hospitality that they can't kick anyone out. This guy worked alone in an all-night coffee shop. By the time he betrayed the slightest bit of annoyance at my presence, he also knew what was up. What struck me was how normal and unoffended he was when the topic was laid out in the open. The issues were more who, what, and most importantly, where. Just when I was ready to give up, he motioned for me to come over while he was standing near the sink. There was a bulge in his crotch pressing against the sink. Those were probably the most exciting 30 seconds of my life, and he came in my mouth. I think the door of the coffee shop was open the whole time, but he thus managed to get rid of me and a troublesome boner. In Egypt I found a "gay" hammam, and yes there was all-out sex there, but they all seem to want to top. I blew a beefy guy with Samson-like hair who accepted the blowjob almost like a second-best to settle for. There was another incident at a major tourist site that I won't get into for risk of causing an international incident. Admittedly, much of the fun was in the long, risky chase, not in the quickie-capture. I cannot deny that it was all risky and I don't know if I would press my luck again. However, I look back and think about the gorgeous muscular French-Moroccan on the beach, or the cute orange juice seller in the Djemaa el Fna who produced a neatly typed strip of paper with his name and phone number (hmmm?), or the young Syrian whose arms rippled while he pounded ice cream (that's how they make ice cream) with a huge battering ram. Worst, the very first Moroccan I chatted up after arriving in Tangiers had a gorgeous bronzed body in a tank top. He was trying to lure me to some overpriced hotel that paid him a commission, so my alarms were all up. Looking back now, it would have been so worth it to pay the hotel's rate and offer him another, special commission that I'm sure he would have accepted. I also have the feeling that much of the uniformed personnel in those countries, especially the poorly paid recruits and the poorly-trained "tourist" police, are available. Half of them are always just lingering around listlessly with probably nothing on their mind but sex and money and the lack of both.

Brazil is shopping mall-crazy, though their malls are not as glittering as those in SE Asia. There are usually well-kept bathrooms in the malls. Finding the malls can sometimes be hard because they are often incorporated inside big office buildings. Most restaurants have toilets (most even have paper). The SP bus station might even have showers. Be very alert in bus stations. They are (or were) huge and busy, almost like an airport, because buses are the main mode of long-distance travel. Do not turn your back for one second on any possession. The Rio main bus station is in an inconvenient, dodgy-looking area.

Does anyone here drink tap water in Brazil? (I do so everywhere in SEAsia without negative effect.) I always bought bottled water. Then again, I drank juices at the hotels and luncheonettes and do I really think they blended them with purified, bottled water? Any hotel recommendations for SP and Rio? I like public transport, so it should be in walking distance to metro station and no problems to bring back boys. Price up to 20 USD per night. Ah, in 2001, I could get a decent room right in Consolacao (SP) or a colonial hotel in Ouro Preto for ~US$15. But now, mmmno. I haven't checked recent rates, but the very frugal hotels I went to most recently were in the US$40 range. In SP, there are the two Pantanal guesthouses near the Santa Cruz metro station (and very convenient to the former Lagoa). Consolacao/Rua Augusta area has a lot of cheap spots. Vila Mariana (metro same name) has a few decent, well-kept hostels. Note that most youth hostels also have a couple private rooms, with private or shared baths. If you really want to rough it, the dodgy Republica area downtown has many cheap hotels, or you can take your chances with the "motels" (love hotels), but bring earplugs. Other than the motels, I don't the guest policy at these places. I think in general if you pay the two-person nightly rate, you'd have a better chance of bringing a friend. I will fly with hand luggage only (hold luggage would cost 80 EUR more for round trip). Is laundry service widely available? I will need to buy a full set of clothes in SP, recommendation where? (And afterwards leave them in Brazil, or try to sneak them into the plane as overweight/oversize hand luggage.) The Brazilian versions of K-Mart and Dollar General are Lojas Americanas and Pernambuco. They, and similar chain stores, are everywhere, with lots of cheap disposable clothing.

numazu, wow! your post conveys all that I find best about the rodizio-de-boys that is the Brazilian sauna scene. Just when you think you've had it all, something new and unexpected. Just when you think you can't take any more, take more you do. Your Programa#2 is EXACTLY like my favorite (but still unrequited) fantasy: The two buddies, one training the other. I know there would be awkwardness in reality, but as a fantasy, your story hits the nail on the head. I also had a sentiment exactly the same as the one you expressed in #3: The best ones know what you want better than you do. They know how far you can go, how much you can take - better than you do.