My first night in a hooker hotel

My first night in a hooker hotel, you know, the kind of bucket-list stuff one needs to check off before they die. This would​ also mark my last night in Colombia and seemed a rather fitting match as Colombia in one of the few places in the world where prostitution is completely legal.

 If one chooses to use one’s body to earn an income, well then you are officially an entrepreneur with a viable business plan and low overhead.

 My choice of hooker hotels was painted in a nice casual pink and white shade that spared no inch of concrete from the nice paint job, not even the water fountain could escape the attention.

 Just like you expect from one of the more organised love shacks in places like las Vegas I too was greeted by the lovely host. She was quite smiley, happy to answer my questions about prices aswell  amenities and was roughly seven years old. Her father finally came around the corner and seemed a bit surprised to see a single man on a large motorcycle only interested in a room for one. He looked as though I’d showed up to his all you can eat buffet completely full.

 After a through grilling about myself and the motorbike, he showed my to my private garage behind a large pink gate then to my awaiting room. Actually bang for your buck this place had above average amenities than most places I’d stayed. Wifi, cable, a toilet seat, private parking, AC, drinks could be delivered to my room, wow what service. Ohh and some bonuses that weren’t usually on my checklist including; two breath mints, a three pack of condoms (mine only had two left), a mirror on the roof, and large photo tutorial on the wall explaining in graphic detail various positions available for sex to the nimble lover in your life. Great, something to do if I could not find any English channels on the television.

 All in all I wasn’t completely thrown off guard as I’d done a bit of research on the topic of love motels since spotting my first one in Mexico some twenty-thousand miles or so South of here. With most things in Latin America, it’s never entirely what one envisions through their North American mind. In many Latin American countries the families live together, the parents, kids, maybe a new husband or wife and maybe their kids. Typically more for financial reasons then for the love of the family, however I found family life to rank incredibly higher then that of North American family life.
 If you can picture your parents in the room next door listening to their adult children maintaining a relationship while the kids are banging on the door asking why Mummy is yelling a Jesus. If that’s more your thing,  then this all makes practical sense. 
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 If not, then you drive up the road to rent a rom for one to two hours, depending on your abilities, and come home to your big happy family in time for dinner. Well at least that would be the general idea I was lead to believe was the hotels main use. I’m not totally discounting the fact that in Latin America it’s not unusual to maybe have a wife and a girlfriend or two. It seems more justifiable when you learn the culture a little.
 Being a lone male for the night I think the lone male running the joint was all too excited to have a change of guests and popped over to chat me up while I unpacked my gear, then asked if I’d like to see his town. The guy proceeded to take me on a self guided one hour tour from the backseat of his bike explaining all the comings and goings of a boarder town in Colombia and once back at the love motel had me up for dinner with his family to chat football and travel. This isn’t the kind of review you are likely to see for a Holiday Inn on TripAdvisor.

 Well rested and fully educated I was again greeted by my host in the morning while he tried to talk me into staying another night as it was the weekend and he would be more than happy to take me out around town. Reluctantly I passed on the hospitable offer and he instead countered it by returning with some fresh bread for breakfast, charging me less then the price we had earlier bargained for and bid me farewell with a Facebook friend request and a bottle of Gatorade for the journey.

  I’ve never used the services of a hooker hotel or the hooker for that matter and I certainly haven’t offered a lover an hour of power in a love shack. However I’m happy to have gotten an education on the back story of the Latin American love motel over a nice family dinner.