/ uruguay
tengo una reserva de hostelworld
I´ve written quite a bit about couchsurfing, yet have not mentioned hostel life at all. And, like almost all young travelers in South America, I have spent many a night - and quite a few days - in hostels. I´m currently in a Loki Hostel, a mini-chain of four hostels in Perú and Bolivia known for being some of the craziest party hostels.
They serve food all day and cook dinner at night (not included) and generally have hopping bars, so guests often forget to leave. Most hostels are not like this, although diversity is sort of the name of the game in hostels - especially since having four hostels makes Loki the largest hostel chain I´ve heard about in South America. Most hostels operate independently and are run by their owner. There are always dorm-style rooms with bunk beds for anywhere from four to 15 people and usually a few private rooms. Almost all have kitchens for guests, a bar, a separate common area with a television and a communal computer. Outside space, like a rooftop patio or backyard, is common.
Free WiFi is the norm, and more people than ever seem to be traveling with laptops since those cheap, light weight, little netbooks appeared this year. Every week I seem to be seeing more people with them, while only three months ago they were novel.
All hostels employ local people, but many have a few gringo employees, especially as bar workers. Of the 20 or so different hostels I´ve stayed at in South America, only one places has had only Spanish-speaking employees. English is without a doubt the language of hostel-culture in South America. The majority of guests come from Australia (a country that must be empty because all of its citizens are out traveling), Germany, the UK, Ireland, Canada, the US, Scandanavia and New Zealand; as you may have noticed, the citizens of these countries either speak English as their first language or so fluently it might as well be their first language. Most people don´t speak more than 50 words of Spanish, though many people are using part of their time in South America to take courses.
Speaking English is generally a problem for people from Italy, Spain, France and Brazil, who bank on their native language being similar enough (or the same) to Spanish to get around.
Many people are traveling alone, which adds to a culture of constantly meeting new people. The vast majority of people are friendly and social, always looking for someone to hang out with. Other people travel in pairs of friends, almost always of the same sex, and there are generally a few couples hanging around. Every once in a blue moon, a pair of siblings or a group of more than three people traveling together can be found.
Most people are traveling for three or four months in South America, though many travel for nine months or a year on ¨around the world trips.¨At any given time, you can find someone in a hostel that has been traveling for several years almost non-stop.
hmm… consider this entry a work in progress
what do you know, i was thinking of buying a spare set of scissors today
¨Here is a truly Argentine experience,¨ Sommelier Host randomly interrupted our conversation to tell me during a long busride in Buenos Aires. When I looked up, I saw who she was talking about: a man selling random goods for a low price on the bus.
a man hawks pens and flashlights at a restaurant
A person enters the car or bus and, depending on the item, gives you a short spiel about how you really want to buy his AR$7 scissors or puts down a pack of pens on everyone´s knees in the car and doubles back in hopes that you´ll give him money for them. If you ignore him, he´ll just pick the item back up, put it in his bag or box and move on to the next car.
I´ve been offered stickers, lighters, prayer cards, hair clips, children´s books, sunglasses, handmade earrings and a shoe shine, among other things while on public transit in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, in cafes (especially common when sitting outside) and on the beach in Chile by men, a handful of women and, sadly, a few small children.
couch surfing isn’t a secret anymore
For the first time I can remember, someone actually answered yes when I asked them if they knew what couchsurfing is today. I was first introduced to the idea of the site (put simply, people offer to let you stay with them and/or show you around) when a friend I had done some traveling with before was about to embark on a trip for several months to South Asia and the Middle East. I quickly joined the site to see what it was about and offered up my apartment as a place to stay, but didn’t actually use the site for several more months (no one seemed interested in couch surfing in rural upstate New York).
My first experience with couchsurfing was fantastic. I was traveling to Uruguay for a few days from Buenos Aires by myself and knew no one in the country. It’s only a short trip from Buenos Aires to Uruguay by boat (one of the closest parts, Colonia, is actually a common summer destination for Porteños), but I figured it would probably be my only trip to Uruguay ever and thus had to be a good one. After spending a short time in the touristy seaside town of Colonia during the offseason, I took the bus to Montevideo and met my couchsurfing host. In addition to introducing me to some of the best parts of the city in a really short period of time, he took me a couchsurfing gettogether where 12 or so people from the city who had hosted, surfed or just liked the idea of it hung out for hours at one person’s apartment.
A fantastic introduction to Uruguyan culture, we sat around, intoducing ourselves, talking, laughing, nibbling at salami, cheese and bread, drinking wine and beer and smoking cigarettes for at least two hours before we climbed down a rickety ladder to the basement. Only then did the host start the fire for the parilla, another almost two hours of talking, laughing, wine, cigarettes and pot before their standard late-night dinner. Followed by dancing and more wine. Oh, and more talking and laughing.
