SolaceSoul

These photos of the inside of the new Espaço Lagoa were taken yesterday (Friday) afternoon by a friend of a friend. As someone who has experience rehabbing some old properties for market, this to me looks like it might not be ready In time for the late November opening. It also looks less like a relaxing sauna and more like a generic remote office space like WeWork or Industrious.

I recently mentioned in the previous Lagoa thread that there are three Metro stops that are about an 8-10 minute walk away from this new Lagoa: Consolação, Higienópolis-Mackenzie, and Estação Paulista.

I, for one, love the sauna model and the sauna culture. For me, it being a sauna and social club is a necessary part of the attraction. Sex — more specifically, sex for pay — is an integral part of the sauna culture, of course, but I find saunas relaxing and sometimes exhilarating. The showers, the near nudity, the cleanliness, the sexual energy, the freedom, the openness, the bars, the socialization — it’s all part of what I enjoy. Otherwise, if I just wanted a nut, I’d just go on a hookup app or call an escort from an ad. I get that there are some clients or would-be clients who would rather NOT be in a towel, or use sauna facilities, or be in a private club around others. And that’s fine. But there are plenty of us who love sauna culture. There are many clients — local and tourist — that do not have a place to hookup with another guy (paid or free). Sure, there are also love motels, but that’s another step after finding the one you want for a short time. And then what if it’s a bust? Back to step 1.The ease and convenience of choice are available at saunas, whereas online ads or club / street hookups require a two-step process in these cases: finding the prospect, then booking a safe place to take him. Most brasileiros that I know (straight or gay) do not dare take dates (especially not pay dates) back to their homes, and will not go to an unknown pay dates address for a hookup. So, it’s either love motels or saunas. Regarding privacy, a very successful argument could be made that working at a sauna is far more private than advertising services on social media. What could be happening is would be sauna garotos simply do not openly advertise online and just the passive requests through PMs, DMs, etc. This, however, is probably not very stable, steady income — and regarding privacy, what’s to stop an unscrupulous or vengeful social media user from taking screen shots of the private messages proving this IG model is offering sex work and making it public? My takeaway is that the better saunas are just as active as ever, but the problem is not really the size of the client base or the number of garotos that are wiling to work there. The bigger problems are for sauna owners and operators: rental prices and operation costs may be increasingly too high. It’s definitely cheaper to operate a website or web page.

It really makes no sense for a metropolitan area of over 21.5 million people to have so few saunas with working garotos. There are 3 in Rio, 4 in Salvador, 3 in Recife, 2 in Fortaleza. That’s a big business waiting for the right investor. Hopefully, the relocated, downscaled, cozier Lagoa will thrive, so that there can at least still be two.

There actually are EEO laws in Brazil, and they do apply to independent contractors and temporary workers like sauna garotos. But ethnic diversity issues aside, I wouldn’t be interested at all (as an employee or as a client) if this is going to be yet another twink sauna. They couldn’t pay me enough. Sorry. @floridarob, you may be joking, but Ibwas discussing the possibility and viability of a sauna investment — except the city that needs another one isn’t Rio. It’s São Paulo.

Hmmm. If only someone would’ve revealed photos of this exact location a week ago...

De nada. The Charles Townsend Agency only hires the best... and the best looking! (I think this building has been vacant for some time. Not sure what it was before, but it was not a sauna or anything like it.)

This photo of the new Thermas Lagoa location (soon to be “Espaço Lagoa”) was just taken by a Brazilian friend of a friend, who is very familiar with the inner workings of the place. It is exactly where I said it would be, on a small one-block side street, Rua Pedro Taques, right off the landmark Consolação cemetery, almost equidistant from the three nearby Metro stations {Estação Paulista, Consolação, Higienópolis- MacKenzie). It’s two buildings away from the corner of Rua Bela Cintra, near the end of the street. The other end of the street is the large Rua da Consolação, and the cemetery. By comparison, here’s a street view capture from Google Maps, which also has the approximate street address. “Cozy”, indeed.

I was just there for about a week, and my estimate is that around 2/3 of the working guys were Brazilian. The others that I met (whether just casually or for actual sessions) were from Colombia, Cuba, Romania, Cameroon, Panama, Venezuela, and Egypt. This also includes even the ones that would not be on my sexual radar. I don’t know how our estimates could be so vastly different.

This all depends on: — the dancer / stripper / gogo boy — how much game you have / how smooth and discreet you can be — how much you’re willing to pay Two different clients can approach the very same guy and get two very different answers.

I’ve put your annoying ass on ignore, but this is worth a response: Maybe you should just stop posting about shit that you know nothing about in desperate attempts to seem like a know-it-all?

There are strip shows at BoyBar BCN on Fridays AND Saturdays. I was just there on a Saturday. The owner is a very friendly but business-minded Panamanian. His partner also works there. It’s a very nice spot, but as mentioned above, the shows start late — and I’m no longer a late-night person.

Short answer: YES. But stick to the well-known cruise / hustler pick-up spots.

Heavy sigh. The Consolação Metro is on Avenida Paulista. The new location is about a 10-minute walk from that. The messages on the official IG and the website “In November, we are moving to the Consolação neighborhood very close to Paulista Avenue”, by “very close to” it means about a 10-minute walk to the Consolação cemetery area, to a side street near it. The Estação Paulista Metro stop is a few minutes walk closer — 8 minutes, if you’re on that train line. The other stop that is nearby, Higienópolis - MacKenzie, is about the same distance as the Consolação stop — 10 minutes. By comparison, the current Thermas Lagoa location is about a 6-minute walk from the Santa Cruz metro station. Of course, this only matters to those of us who actually care to travel by Metro. For the Uber and cab crowd, it’s pretty much all the same. In either event, this coming week, the exact address reveal is being promised, so those that solely get their scoop from mad Googling can give their scraggly fingers a rest. As I said already, it’s going to be on a smaller street almost directly across from the Consolação landmark cemetery. And the name will change slightly from Thermas Lagoa to Espaço Lagoa (probably due to its newfound “coziness”).

This may fall on deaf ears here, but... In spite of a poster or two saying “no records required!”, considering the current state of the federal government in America, if you are a US citizen traveling to Cuba, be sure to maintain accurate records showing that you went to Cuba legally and complied with the restrictions and requirements under the travel category which you claimed when you started the trip. The current administration may be dysfunctional but it is also vengeful. American tourists to Cuba ARE being busted and used as examples. The busts may be random, but you never know when your number may be called at Customs upon return to a US port of entry.

Yep, except see my following post. Instead of “right off Avenida Paulista”, it’s actually “right off Estação Paulista”. Pay no attention to the Googlers.

With preparation and work, and plenty of good record keeping, it’s still possible for US citizens to travel to Cuba legally under the “support for the Cuban people” category. You have to avoid patronizing or even entering almost all places and businesses that are owned or operated by the Cuban government — and this includes many if not most famous tourist spots, and almost every hotel and almost every restaurant. What you can do legally is stay at casa particulares and AirBnBs because they are privately owned and operated — thus, supporting Cuban people directly. You can also eat at the family-owned paladares. You also should have your 9am to 5pm every day scheduled and documented of support for the Cuban people activities — and no tourism activities, because that’s technically illegal. Also be prepared to show your activity logs and schedule with evidence of your activities when you return to US Customs, and for 5-7 years after your trip. It may not happen, but you can get randomly questioned.

The clarification that I just received is that when I was told it would be in Consolocão and on / near Paulista is that it is off the Estação Paulista Metro stop (NOT Avenida Paulista, as I originally thought one of my sources said), and that it is both near Consolação (which is the name of a large well-known cemetery, but also the neighborhood around it is often referred to by the cemetery and street name, Consolação) AND is on or right off Avenida Consolação. This would make it between the triangle of the Estação Paulista Metro, the Higienópolis - MacKenzie Metro l, AND the Consolação Metro. All of these stations are between an 8-10 minute walk to the center of Consolação. NOTE: if correct, this further eliminates the existing saunas Club Rainbow or Top Man, as possibilities. So, mystery solved. If all my independent sources (now three) are to be believed, then the only further clarifications are the exact street (large Rua Consolação, or a smaller side neighborhood street?), and the grand opening date.

Here’s the face-to-face, in-person “insider info” that I received late last week — from two separate Paulista working “boys” with tight relationships with the owner and/or his traveling clients who also regularly send for garotos overseas. According to each of these two, Rodolfo has told them that the new Lagoa is opening in December, and that it will be in the Consolação neighborhood, either on or right off Avenida Paulista. Two different, unrelated “high-end” garoto sources that work regularly in Lagoa said this to me in independent conversations in just the last week that it would be on (or right off) Av. Paulista. Now, I also tried to ask if this new sauna will be taking over an existing sauna space, such as the failing Club Rainbow. I could not get a direct answer, but this may have been due to that part of our conversations being lost in translation — and we were talking about several other topics. However, according to Google Maps, Rainbow is 3.5 blocks from Av. Paulista and is not in Consolação, so that fact pattern doesn’t really fit what I was told by these two different jet-setting garotos. But, like everything you hear second- or third-hand and like everything you read on the internet, take it with a grain of salt, consider the source material, and use your own judgment.

Probably the simplest way is to show up to one of the several gay hot spots (listed in the more detailed Cuba threads), like the discos, bars, cruise spots, and start meeting guys. Let them know you don’t speak much Spanish and you’re hoping to meet someone who speaks English. More than likely, you’ll eventually find someone who does — or they might approach you. Whether or not they will be to your liking, well that’s another matter.

If you don’t get a hotel, and you stay in a casa particular or an AirBnB, then if the host / landlord has no guest restrictions (some have them), you won’t have a problem having a Cuban local stay with you. Hotels in Cuba, however, will give you a big problem, as it is literally illegal for a Cuban National to stay at a hotel as an unregistered, non-paying guest. And no Cuban wants to go to a Cuban prison, especially not for something so easily avoidable. Regarding a recommendation in advance, you can try emailing the “Gay Cuban Tour Guide” Luis at his official work email: luis@gaycubatourguide.com . This was his publicly advertised email, so I do not mind posting it here. Make sure you use an email account that won’t be rejected under the USA - Cuba embargo. If that email does not work or if it bounces back, then I can privately give you the last private email account I have for him (in DM). Luis knows English very well, but he is a gay tour guide, and he does NOT double as a Rentboy or a pimp service, like the ones always discussed in the Dominican Republic. He may be able to introduce you to someone who can do this for you, however, if you hire him for a legitimate gay or nongay tour. Luis also knows the owner of Casa Aleido, an older lively Cuban queen who runs the “gay casa particular” that is also another option for you to meet someone for you to “spend time with or show you around”, as there are always gay or gay friendly local guys at the casa or at his disposal for his guests. Or you can jut stay there or contact him yourself by email: http://www.cuba-junky.com/havana/casa-aleido.htm . But as I know nothing about you or your tastes, I can’t recommend the place or his regular denizens to you. It and his crowd may be your cup of tea or it may not be. Or you can just show up in Havana and meet someone there who will probably be glad to spend time with you and show you around for the entire time you are there, for a pre-negotiated rate.

With 1,852 posts to date, I’m sure you squeeze in quite enough time in between shuffleboard, bingo, and tapioca pudding to comment on barely legal twinks that are 60 years your junior.

Frankly, I don’t understand why this blathering idiot is covering what he considers his “big Google discovery” in such a shroud of secrecy. Per usual, the socially inept, dottering old fool’s only real friend and connection to the outside world is a Google search engine, and this is just yet another lame attempt to seem like he is some insider who scooped us all. Here’s the Google link to the Justice Report, which basically says nothing and reveals nothing. Read for yourselves, in Portuguese. It can also be translated into English in the Google translate engine on its browser. It’s a big nothingburger. Life here is so much more enjoyable with that blathering old fool now on “ignore”. http://web.trf3.jus.br/diario/Consulta/BaixarPdf/20336