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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.”

Source: www.passportmagazine.com