Everybody knows hotels and motels but hostels are cut from different cloth. People on the road need a place to shut down and unwind. Inn keepers around the world host them, meet that need, for a price. On the other hand, hostels are similar but it’s a communal process where strangers share a dormitory space, sleep in bunks, end around the room. Genderless bathrooms with doored shower stalls and toilets accommodate travelers who prefer the collective rather than privacy. Cooking in common kitchens and gathering around a big screen T.V., watching programs subtitled in English or German, for those who don’t speak Japanese or Italian; that’s what you get at a hostel. Of course, the price makes travel affordable for students and wanderers who long to see the world before it passes them by. American comedian, Jonathan Winters once said, “I couldn’t wait for success so I went on without it.” He would have stayed in hostels. I can hostel in Auckland, New Zealand or Mendoza, Argentina for a week on the money it would take for one night in a hotel or motel there.
I remember a rainy day in Valdivia, Chile; back in 2005. When my bus arrived in the middle of the day, I took the cheapest dorm room, threw my stuff on one of five beds, put on my rain coat and took off to see the town. A few miles down stream, the river emptied into the Pacific Ocean. Bull seals were stationed stream side along the pilings at the fish market. They knew exactly where fish mongers would throw the next fish head and were there to snap it up. When I got back to the hostel, someone was rolled up in a blanket on another bed. I saw eyes peering out at me and I asked in my best English, “And, who might you be.?” I didn’t expect to be understood. Not much English spoken down there. Her name was Esra Moogle, a Turkish Jew in her 40’s, just sold her business in Istanbul and traveling. Fluent in 9 languages, she informed me (after a brief introduction and conversation) that we would travel together for a few days. The next night we were at a hostel in Puerto Varas, Chile, hanging out with two young women, one European the other a mestiza, both lawyers from Buenos Aries. There was a young, particle physicist from San Paulo who loved the blues and his beautiful companion. They were married but not to each other. That’s how it has to work in South America where the church forbids divorce. If you can afford to get away, you steal away cross the border and take your forbidden fruit with you. I cooked, Esra translated, we all sang and told stories. The next day the lawyers went south with us, into Argentina and the lovers headed north. Something about hostels that overcomes modesty and makes everyone equal.
In Auckland, NZ, Nomad’s Hostel is just off Queen Street, a couple of blocks from the harbor. It’s an old, 5-story building nested down between tall, glass and steel towers in the country’s largest city. There is a bar on the top floor with an open ceiling, like sports stadiums in the States except this open dome didn’t have a closable roof. When it rained, the dance floor got rained on and you had to walk around the room to get to the bar. Up and outside, the lights from office buildings modeled starlight with a pseudo Grand Canyon feel. Most of the backpackers were young, looking for whatever they look for. I talked with an old timer, probably not as old as me but certainly more weathered who thought everything was going to hell. He said, “We used to go alone and met everybody, learn about everything. Now they come and go in two’s and three’s, with their smart phones. They watch the t.v. and text their girl or boy friends back in Germany, or Skype their mothers back in Israel. They have more money and it’s all about them. Nobody talks, it’s like zombie land compared to the 80’s and 90’s.” I couldn’t speak to the 90’s but just ten years ago, technology in Chile and Argentina was a blurry, old, 14” computer at an internet cafe for $1.50 and check your email.
I didn’t stick around. He was right and if you didn’t bring along your own companion, you might as well be on an iceberg somewhere. I went to a guitar jam at the Thirsty Dog, on Karangahape Street. When I arrived, I knew one person. I met Tony at the Unitarian Church the day before. He is a 70-something, Irish transplant. He doesn’t play guitar but he sings. The guitars find his key and slip in under him. He promised someone would loan me a guitar and I could get my turns at the mic. Closing time we had made a lot of music and I was invited back. I did St. James Infirmary Blues and Over The Rainbow. Then when my turn came around again, I asked for help, in the key of E. I laid down a 12-bar blues rhythm and they all took turns noodling blues licks and riffs. It was a great evening and Tony drove me back down town, to Nomad’s. In the lounge, there were 20 or so young people laying all over the furniture and beanbag pillows on the floor, watching Arnold Schwarzenegger on the t.v., venting destruction with a rocket launcher in one hand and a flame thrower in the other. Except, some of them had dozed off and others were texting their boy or girls friends across town or across an ocean. I showered and went to bed. The music from the club under our window, down on the street was loud but that’s what you get. If you don’t like it, you can throw down $140 and take a cab over to the Best Western President Hotel. They will guarantee your privacy.
