A Few Favorites

I decided to revisit a couple of my favorite bars today in the area close to where I live. The first one is a small place with now name out front. As you may recall, last year I found out that the name of this place is La Gloria de Infierno or The Glory of Hell.

La Gloria de Infierno


It sounds much worse than it is. It is actually just a small place with a couple of tables and a cement bar in the back. You don’t see many tourists in here, in fact I have never seen any except me and whoever I come in with.

Gringos Having A Few Belts and Beers


Last year the crowd was a bit surly, but this year they seemed friendly enough. The bartender is always friendly, but I suspect that is because we actually pay for our drinks and leave tips as well. He honored our presence with a bowl of free peanuts.

They had really neat shot glasses in here although shot glasses might be a misnomer; they hold much more than a shot. Big and heavy and the bartender poured with a heavy hand. My friend Sandy asked if we could buy a couple and the bartender sold us three of them for 20 pesos each.

We had a couple of beers and a couple of “shots” of tequila in here and then headed to another favorite of mine a couple of blocks away.

Currently Rojan


This one is now Rojan, but it has had a number of different names over the years. The first time I came here it was the Corner Bar. It was the first bar that I visited, many years ago, on the south side of Rio Cuale where I now reside while I am here. At that time there was almost nothing over here in terms of places for tourists, it really was out of the way. Now it is jumping although still not as built up as the other side of the river.

One night, before I moved into this area, a couple of buddies and I hit this bar late at night at found out that it had become a gay bar for Mexicans, and a bit of a rough one at that, think cowboys in leather. And this was way before Brokeback Mountain, which is actually about gay shepherds, not cowboys. It seems like every year the name of the place changes and there is a shift in the clientele. It isn’t exactly a touristy place, but it really isn’t a place for locals either. Kind of dead during the day but it livens up at night when they sometimes have live music.

The décor of the bar hasn’t changed much over the years except there is no longer a woman who makes tacos. They have added a pool table and you can shoot for free, at least during the day. When we stopped in there in mid-afternoon there was only one other customer, a local. The bartender was really friendly though and we ingested a few more tequilas than were probably good for us, but what else is new.

Bar Man And The Gang Overindulging


The bartender actually gave us a shot glass for some reason. They get them for free from the liquor distributors anyway and I am sure plenty of them get stolen. I doubt if anyone would try to steal one from La Gloria de Infierno though, I know I wouldn’t try.

We hit a few more places during the day including a pool hall where we had a couple of beers, but these were my favorites and I thought I would share them with you. I forgot the recharger for my new camera, a Kodak V550, and it doesn't take regular batteries so unless I find a place that sells the battery it takes or find someone with the same camera and a recharging cable I am done taking pictures this year. Of course I also left my old camera at home so I don't even have a backup. Now you know why I don't do this as a profession.