Dispatch Number 68 -The Cheap Hotel

The great money saver, the third class traveler's retreat with its thin walls and creaky furniture. Everything is flimsy, shaky and half repaired, doors that look and sound like they could be pushed in by a five year old. The smells. Unventilated and dank or my new word to describe this offensive sort of smell, munky. The inescapable smell of mouse shit hidden in the walls and ceiling cracks, then on top of your bag in the morning. One room in Colombia smelled of mouse shit and wet dog fur; I burned incense and accomplished nothing except add to the confusion of smells. I live this way so I can travel one more day.

There is a continuous stream of noise in the cheap hotel. My neighbor's tv blares while his catatonic body lie on the bed with volume turned too high. Nursing his cathode ray nipple. It is shocking how much time we pass with this brain suck device. Short stocky construction guys hammering into concrete walls at seven in the morning. Pounding, drilling and the satisfying smell of fresh made concrete. They are perpetual works in progress; dream chasing owners with plans to become more grand. The truth is hotel DNA rarely changes.

For me it is both budget and desire to be with more authentic people than those found in fancy hotels with their new linens and well dressed people looking for the same things the cheap hotel guests want. In the cheap hotel conversation comes easy.

In the recent past I made an early check in and was pleased with my hotel find: a spacious $9 room with good bed and private bathroom. After a long walk and dinner I returned to my catch of a hotel and found it filled with new sounds: joyous drunk people. As the night progressed the smell of alcohol and semen filled the hallways. With this new perspective I made a closer inspection of my room and found a condom wrapper in the corner, another in the bathroom trash can and a neatly folded bath towel that looked suspiciously unclean.

How could I have known, it all looked so normal in daylight. I laid in bed in want of what they had until I fell asleep. I awoke in the middle of the night to pee and watched a couple fuck in the breezeway with a bed sheet drawn over them. The sheet was the only part that bothered me. Sometimes the poor places read like old Rome. Time is distorted when one is drunk. I watched. The act was efficiently completed in less than two minutes.

When all the honest people were long in their beds. The cheap hotel.

David
Otavalo, Ecuador