Men's Cantinas
A typical cantina bar in Mexico is a men’s watering hold. Last night we wanted to grab a beer and we ducked into a place that we thought might have beer on tap. When we entered, I realized it was a men’s bar. ‘Uh oh,’ I told the bar tender, I think I made a mistake and came into a hombre only bar. ‘Not to worry,’ he assured me, ‘No problem, women can come in here.’ ‘Fine!’ I said. Mexico might be opening up to the idea of women in the bars. So we talked to the male bar tender a bit and then sat down at a table to drink our beer. There was only one other patron at the bar who apparently had been there for a while. In came another person and I heard the distinct sound ‘kreeettt…..phetttewww’….. of spitting. It was unmistakable. ‘We’re inside’, I thought, ‘Where could they be spitting? I didn’t see any spittoons.’ So I looked around and saw that between the bar stools and the bar, there was a 4” rain gutter for spitting into. Yukk! Standing, spitting down at your feet to hit a 4” gutter in the floor didn’t sound very sanitary. ‘Well, OK, I can deal with that.’
The 'spit gutter' running along the lower bar on the floor
Then while we carried on our conversation, a guy left his stool and went to the corner of the room next to the bar and started peeing in a stainless steel cabinet that looked like it was meant to hold ice cubs. Another Yukk!!! He stood there a long time and I was incredulous that he was doing his duty a couple feet away from the bar. Then a guy came in off the street did the same thing in the corner, no hand washing involved, and then headed back on to the street. Wow. I feel like I’m in some surreal movie scene. Ladies, we aren’t missing anything by being excluded from these drinking establishments.
Bar on the left, pee box in the corner with sink on the other side
Can you imagine just for a moment if a woman designed a drinking establishment? Let’s see, soft chairs to lounge upon, beautiful mirrors and lighting with nice scented soaps in the bathrooms…
