Sauna H20 Trujillo, Peru
A Forbidden Authentic Gay Experience in a Very Surprising Place
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The flyers I had found online said that Sauna H20 was open daily, from 3PM to 10PM. The idea to go popped into my head around 5:00. It was my third day in Huanchaco, Peru and things weren’t going well.
My plan was to come to this quiet Spanish style Pueblito, on a hill, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and write about my experiences in Lima and in Mexico City. On first glance it was a beach town that catered to straight people wanting to learn to surf and not quiet, introspective, gay men looking for an inspiring place to write.
I write, with confidence, and experience, that gay men can benefit from traveling to other cities in order to discover, for ourselves, our own authentic expression of our homosexuality. But oftentimes, when the city life gets overstimulating and I want to go somewhere quiet and inspiring, I find myself at a loss
It turns out that there is plenty of space for quiet thinking, and writing to be done in Huanchaco and I’m currently here writing away in their antique library, listening to the waves in the background. You just have to know where to look, and you have to be patient. My patience had run out this Sunday afternoon and I had resigned to doing what I knew how to do, which was find a place to be gay. For that I needed a bigger city, and the only one around was Trujillo.
There are a suprisingly large number of buses that go from Huanchaco to Trujillo. They told me Trujillo was the second largest city in Peru. It had a beautiful Spanish colonial style main square, on par with any in Mexico.
Like Mexico City, Trujillo is built on top of many of the oldest civilizations known to man and their ruins surround the city. All the hotels in Huanchaco have flyers of tours that take you to all of these places but I was skeptical that they’d be nothing more than tourist traps.
Unlike Mexico City, Trujillo gave off the impression that its best days were behind, and that there was certainly not going to be a progressive gay life to be found here. But Trujillo, like Mexico City, was about to surprise me.
Google told me that there were several gay saunas which people were reviewing as recently as weeks ago. I went to the one with the most recent reviews, messaged them on WhatsApp, and they responded.
I arrived to a dingy neighborhood. Pretty much every neighborhood in Trujillo, outside of the main square, is a dingy neighborhood. People were living on the streets, in tents, and stray dogs ran wild.
A nondescript row house on the corner matched the address of the club. I rang the doorbell and waited a few minutes before someone came down to answer it.
He welcomed me into a clean professional lobby, told me that the cover was S30 and that I would pay on the way out.
I walked up to the second floor which consisted of a bar area, and locker room. The bar area had about 4 older men inside of it chatting, gossiping, fully clothed. In the locker room there was one young chacal, who had just arrived and was changing. He was more handsome than any guy I’d expected to find here.
I asked him about the guys in the other room and how they were dressed and whether I should change into a towel or not. He told me that the sauna was upstairs and encouraged me to change into my towel.
He went further to explain that the two small sheets they gave me were for walking around in, and the towel was for drying off after.
The sauna upstairs, on the third floor, was really impressive. By now I had realized that this space was a residential house which had been converted into a sauna/bar with a best friend’s living room type of vibe.
The bar downstairs was actually the owner’s kitchen, which doubled as a bar. The living room had a mix of sofas and tables.
Both the dry and wet saunas were warm, and very well maintained. There was also a jacuzzi which they warmed up on demand.
There were two showers with half walls around them to offer both privacy and yet another opportunity to show off for those who wanted to.
There weren’t many people there just yet. The crowd seemed to be a mix of average looking older men, and drop dead gorgeous young model types. Agewise I was somewhere in the middle.
The top floor was nothing more than a hallway with 4 doors. Two of them were locked shut, the third was a doorway, where the door had been removed. There were two twin size beds with plastic padded mattresses on either side. I knew what this room was for, and I was a little disappointed at how empty it was at 6PM on a Sunday.
At this time, in Mexico City, there were at least 20 of these types of rooms, each with at least 10 men inside of them, barebacking. The 4th door was a simple bathroom.
On my way back to the stairs I heard a moaning and a pounding sound coming from one of the locked doors. I tried to turn the knob and made a click sound.
“Hey!” a loud aggressive scream responded.
I immediately ran down the stairs clutching my towel to keep it from falling down.
In addition to the steam, dry sauna, double shower, and jacuzzi there was a sitting room with a huge sofa and huge TV which was playing The Fast and the Furious. I loved this movie series. Partly because the movies are somewhat entertaining but more because over the course of my life this movie franchise has always been a favorite of the straight guys I have had crushes on.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had plenty of sex and fallen in love plenty of times inside of the gay community, but a large part of my gay life has also involved playing games of getting straight men to come to me like a squirrel in the woods. And at this point in my life Ive had enough surprising wins that I now believe that anything is possible in that sphere. It’s not just a fantasy. It’s part of a real gay life.
Club H20 in Trujillo is a bit of a theme park designed around this idea.
The TV room was empty except for one guy in his early twenties. He was laying down with his hands behind his head and his legs and feet spread out onto the ottoman which pointed out from one side of the couch. He wore a blue sheet, the same as mine, which he had rolled up so far that you could see his thick veined bazookah of a penis and a freshly trimmed forest of thick black hairs around it.
I stood there by the door and began watching the movie. My eyes moved back and forth from the movie to the fascinating penis on display next to me.
Each time my gaze would get a little longer and I’d advance my conquest o this adonis a little further.
The way he had his arms above his head was so inviting, but his eyes were fixed on the movie. I was waiting for a smile or a flirty giggle or some sort of affirmation but he wasn’t playing that game.
He was playing another one.
At times I could see his penis swell but never did it separate from the slimy cushion of balls and foreskin on which it comfortably lay.
After weighing all my options I decided on just asking him
“Te moleste si te la tocara?”
He gave me an affirmative nod and I sat down next to him on the ottoman.
I glided my fingertips on top of it and bent down to smell it. That made him hard. It stood straight up, leaving the two heavy balls it sat on to hang by themselves. I put the cock in my mouth but it was too big to really do anything with. I decided to change my strategy and taste one of the balls when, suddenly, he covered himself up in response to somebody passing us by in the hallway.
“Is this not allowed in public?” I asked.
He paused, looked for the right words and then said “Es que soy SCORT. Trabajo aquí.”
I asked him how much he charged.
“Cobro cien soles.” he responded.
He told me that we’d go up to a room where there would be relaxing music and we can have a great time.
“Will you fuck me?” I asked.
“I’ll do whatever you want.” he responded.
“Vamos.” I told him.
S100 is a little over $30USD. I’ve never paid that much in Mexico. But I would probably have paid more. This guy was like the dream latino guy that everybody who loves latinos dreams of. He was from Venezuela. It seems like the majority of sex workers in Peru are from Venezuela.
He told me to wait for him upstairs and he would go get the key to the room from the owner.
He returned with a bottle of lotion, and one condom. He took off his towel and we began kissing.
What followed was, without a doubt, one of the best sexual experiences I’ve ever had. Nobody has ever focused so intently on my desires in such a professional yet sensual way. Most of the hustlers in Mexico, in la Alameda Central are just friends looking to fuck another guy in exchange for a few bucks. They don’t charge much and they don’t do much. That’s the vibe, and I loved it. It was fun. Those guys were my friends. I miss them.
The guys in la Alameda Central used to get off by shoving their dick as far down my throat as possible and making me choke, this guy fed me his giant cock carefully so that I could savor it, like a fine wine.
He put me on the bed doggy style and ate my ass forever. When he was done I wanted his dick so bad. I was moaning in pleasure just imagining what was to come.
He asked me if I wanted a condom or not, when I told him no, he had no objection.
We rolled around the bed kissing and fucking and I was moaning softly the entire time.
He’d pin me down and hold me there while he fucked me for what seemed like an eternity. Then we’d melt together like marshmallows and kiss until he pinned me down again.
He came inside me and then finished me off and we lay next to each other catching our breaths.
When we were done we both left the room. We both went on to socialize with other guys there. From time to time I’d pass the room and I’d hear somebody else moaning.
Not everybody was there for the scorts. There were some other silly young guys who just came for the steam room, the flirting, and to be gay.
The owner was busy making dinner for everybody in his kitchen, but he took a break to talk to me.
He told me it was him who had responded to my WhatsApp messages.
When I told him I was from Washington DC he told me that he had lived there for several years in the nineties. We began remising about the old school gay places; Badlands in Dupont circle, Secrets, Velvet Nation, and Capitol Ballroom and the entire scene on the Navy Pier.
I told him that it was all gone now. They tore it all down to build The Washington Nationals Baseball Stadium, and an enormous condo development where Pete Buttigieg, the first gay cabinet secretary, now lives with his husband and their two adopted babies.
He encouraged me to contact him if I had any questions about Trujillo. I invited him to have lunch a few times but he was never available. There was always somebody who had called out and his business always got in the way.
He encouraged me to come back and told me that the next time he’d waive the cover. I’d only pay for drinks and dick.
I took him up on it a few more times. I really loved the clubhouse vibe that he had there. It really felt reminiscent of my childhood, also in DC, where I went to a friend’s house to spend a Sunday afternoon, only instead of my desire for the other boys overtaking me, mystifying and scaring me, I had learned some important lessons and now I could enjoy and explore that desire among friends who were more suited for me.
I would jerk off before I went so that I wouldn’t be too eager for dick right away. They allowed me to smoke weed there. One of the employees even offered to run out to get some for me to smoke with my new friends.
We’d watch The Fast and The Furious, and other Sunday afternoon Hollywood movies dubbed in Spanish. We’d smoke weed in between sweating in the steam room. We’d touch and flirt with each other, but not more. We were friends. When we really wanted to fuck, there was always a decadent ice cream Sundae ready to destroy us.
The vibe was intergenerational. Young guys mixed with old. The scorts hung out with us too. I believe all felt like we belonged. And I feel that for many of us, that was a feeling we may have been feeling for the first time.
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