Is This the Hostel at the End of the World?

Travel By Bus Sucks

Around ten at night, I jumped on a night bus to Mocoa from Villvieja. I joined a British couple. I met them when they commented on my hat.

“Wow, you don’t look like a dick in that hat.” The British girl says.

“What?”

“It’s just that most people in that hat, they would look like a dick, but you don’t.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“It’s probably one of the nicest things a British person can say,” her boyfriend chimed in.

But I hate bus travel. Which probably makes my plan to travel to Buenos Aires, about 4,000 miles away from where I am now. The bus ride was awful, just constantly swaying back and forth, waking up every time my head slammed into the window. Feeling like I was so sweaty, I was going to get some sort of fungal infection. Not exactly what I would describe as a pleasant ride.

I wake up to what feels like a fever dream and someone singing Mocoa Mocoa to the tune of a Santana song. I get off, forgetting to say goodbye to the British couple. Which would normally make you a dick, but not me.

After a short taxi ride, I’m dro[ped off in the middle of nowhere with what appears to be a tourist center. I walk in, knocking over a wooden fence and trying to find where I am supposed to go. A tired-looking woman comes out from one of the rooms.

Where’s My Hostel? Oh Just In The Jungle

“What are you doing?” She asked, wiping sleep from her eyes.

“Oh, I’m looking for my hostel, la posada al fin del mundo, sorry it’s so early,” I said.

“Oh, okay, it’s about 15 minutes down the path on your left. I’ll be there in like 30 minutes to check you in.” She said.

I glance down the path, of which I can see about four feet of a thin line of gravel snaking into the Amazonian jungle before it is swallowed in darkness.

“Okay,” I said. Imagine me making an audible gulp. I don’t really like bugs or being eaten alive by jaguars.

I pushed farther into the jungle, with the sounds around me growing stronger with each step. I find my hostel in the pitch black, relieved to find a hammock I can rest in. After I shake out the bugs, I fall asleep to screeches and yells.

“Wake up,” a man told me. “Your room is ready.” He took me to a nice private room which pleasantly surprised me since I booked a dorm room.

“Wake up,” he told me again, knocking on my door. He brings me to the table where he has made breakfast. “You’re the only guest today, but you should go see the waterfall. It’s beautiful.”

Then a girl walked up. “Perfect,” I told him. “I’ll have a friend.”

“I’m looking for la posada al fin del mundo,” She asked.

“Oh, that’s the other hostel,” he told her. “It’s about 10 minutes further down the path.”

Uh oh, I think. Is it rude to suddenly switch hostels? It is where I booked online.

“What’s wrong,” Riccardo asked me.

“Oh, it’s just, that is actually the hostel I made a reservation at.”

“Well, what would happen if you didn’t go?” He asked. “Probably nothing,” he answered himself.

“I think I”m gonna go anyway. I can pay for the breakfast and a little of the room.”

I head to the next hostel, where they are expecting me.

I asked the French girl if she wanted to go on the jungle hike. She politely declined.

Hike To The End Of The World/You Don’t Sound American

So I headed off on my own, where I met another French girl, and we talked in Spanish.

“De donde eres?” She asked me.

“De donde piensas?” I asked her.

She guessed that I was from Germany. No. Switzerland? No. France? No, I’m from the United States. I watched her face fall.

“Well, you have a very European accent,” she told me.

Which felt amazing. I don’t know if any of you speak Spanish, but the American accent, in my opinion, has got to be one of the strongest and ugliest accents in Spanish. It’s awful. And it’s also usually better for people to think you’re European than American. There is more stigma there. It turns out that not everyone believes that we are number one.

When we finally made it to the waterfall at the end of the world, we got harnessed in and watched the water drop 250 feet to be dashed on the rocks below.