The air that night was warm and moist, almost sensual as it touched us, and I was feeling so good with a bit of a buzz from the cerveza that I had consumed earlier. We walked down the dusty road next to the Convention Center, saying "Buenas noches perros," to the dozen or so dogs sleeping next to the road. One of them looked up at me with a rather disinterested gaze. "Hmmph, tourists!" he probably thought as we walked on by.

Avenue Hidalgo was alive with people. We fell immediately in love with the atmosphere of this little strip of bars and restaurants. Everything is so open and friendly. You can walk down the street, greet people sitting at tables outside, hear the music, and smell the aroma of the food.

As we passed by Kokonuts, I heard Santana and stopped in my tracks. Ritsuko and I both really like Santana. A man walked up to us and started hitting us with the hard sell, spouting drink prices, offering us a table, going on and on and on to the point that I couldn't hear the music. I leaned over to him and said in a calm voice directly in his ear, "Amigo!...relax". He and I both smiled as he realized that he was preaching to the choir. Ritsuko and I walked into the bar, ordered a cold Superior, and sat down. The music was on a video, and we were about theonly people sitting inside, but we were ready to just sit a while and enjoy.

After a couple of beers, we were ready to move on. We walked down to the square, where we could hear people cheering. A basketball game was in progress. What a nice little town. I had never before seen a town square with an outdoor basketball court, complete with electric scoreboard. We sat and watched the game for a few minutes, then went out seeking more cerveza and song. Walking back down Hidalgo, amidst all of the other sounds, that unmistakable sound of a blues guitar rift reached into my head. Yep, I heard it alright...that sound that makes my two left feet start to move with the music, and makes me want to....you guessed it, DRINK MORE BEER. As we continued to walk the music became clearer, then there we were, standing outside Isla Tequila. The band must have been on break when we walked by a few minutes before. The sign outside was a advertisement for their daily 10 peso beer special.

TEN PESO BEER !!! AND GREAT LIVE MUSIC!! Could this be? WOW, what a place!! That night the beer special was Victoria. I had never heard of this beer before, and part of my brain was hoping that it wasn't some kind of weak burro piss in a clear bottle, while the other part of my brain was saying, "who cares dummy, it's only a buck a bottle!!"

All of the tables outside were full of people. The band was hammering out a solid rendition of a Stevie Ray Vaughan tune as we walked into the bar. We were greeted by one of several waiters flying about the place in Superman t-shirts, moving with the music, serving drinks, dancing with customers, and just having a damn good time. We sat at a table in the corner near a window, and soon had two cold bottles of cerveza Victoria in front of us. I was happy to see that it was a brown bottle. To me, that outward appearance is always a good start. The beer had a good solid flavor, with not too much bite, a pleasant aftertaste, and it was wet...I like that in a beer. I slugged down about half the bottle, leaned back in my chair, and just relaxed, getting into the music. Ritsuko was sitting across from me, smiling I winked at her, and she smiled bigger....yep, this was the place where all is well...a great live band and 10 peso beer...what could be better than that.

I watched and listened to the band play. These guys were great. They were all very accomplished musicians, and although it was what appeared to be a group of friends just jamming together, as far as I was concerned they could be playing on any stage, anywhere. But here they were in a little bar, in a little town, on a tiny island, and we were so happy to be there too.

Our superman waiter was very adept at keeping pace with my beer consumption. I was never left with an empty bottle in front of me. The band was playing our kind of music, some Stones, some Stevie Ray, a little ZZ Top, all intermixed with a few Mexican tunes. Listening to good music really makes the cerveza flow, and before long, I either had to dance or go to el bano. Since Ritsuko was too laid back to get out of her chair, I decided to dance alone to el bano.

Making my way through the dancing crowd, I got to the restroom doors which were each adorned with large paintings which I presumed to be an indication of gender designation. Looking to my left, I saw that the creature in the painting appeared to be wearing a skirt. Looking to my right, I saw the painting of a bull's head atop a figure, the rest of which I neglected to see. So I opened the door on the right. I was about to enter, when our waiter grabbed my arm, laughing and shaking his head, and pointing to door number one. I then snapped out of my tunnel vision to see that the paintings on the doors were each segmented into three parts, and I, having seen only one segment of each door, was about to enter the ladies room which, fortunately, was unoccupied.

Realizing that I was probably one of many who had been foiled by this little test of sobriety, and being a bit too inebriated to be embarrassed, I had a good laugh as I was redirected to the appropriate bano. Upon returning to the table, Ritsuko sat giggling, slowly shaking her head from side to side, her hand slightly covering her mouth. I had a pretty good idea what she was saying as I leaned over to her face, only to hear the much anticipated response of "Baka, ne!!!", of which the approximate translation from Japanese to English is "You dumbass!!!".

The band of friends played on as we continued to enjoy the music, the 10 peso cerveza Victoria, and the general atmosphere of the bar. We stayed at Isla Tequila until the band stopped playing for the evening. As we walked north, there was still plenty of entertainment along Hidalgo, but Ritsuko and I were pretty well spent for the day. We stopped at a little taco stand across from the Internet Cafe which run by two young guys. We each had three tacos de pollo con queso, adorned by salsa. Sitting next to the street we enjoyed our tasty little tacos as we watched parade of people on Avenue Hidalgo.

Ritsuko and I walked back to the hotel, hand in hand, scooting our feet in the dusty road to make bigger tracks, laughing quietly so we did not wake the sleeping dogs ... afterall, it was their bedroom, and we didn't want to be rude. We got back to our room and sat out on the verandah, watching the starlit sky and the moonlit waves crashing on the rocks below feeling the Caribbean breeze on our bodies as we reflected on the day. We were both very content, like two little children who had just had ice cream and a pony ride. Really, it had been an evening of simple pleasures in a wonderful, friendly environment. There had been no big budget shows, no elaborate costumes, no extravagant food, no spectacular thrills, but just pure joy, Isla style.