There’s no such thing as loneliness in a hostel — it gets split eight ways, along with the phone charger.
It’s a special genre of human relations. Ten people in a room, and every one of them in headphones, under a duvet, alone with their demons.
I logged into my Hostelworld account. The last entry:
South Beach Rooms and Hostel Miami 22 December - 24 December 2018
The post about hostel bookings wasn’t theoretical. I really had decided to relive my youth — the one with a single shower per floor and a roommate snoring across several continents at once. These days that roommate is me.
Hostal Casa MX Alameda — $53.09 ×66 +3 503.
The price includes the mark-up for miles, at $14 per thousand.
I arrive in the evening, hoping for a bunk and a socket. The lad on reception, with the bearing of a prison governor:
— Señor, your booking… cannot be found.
It was the “señor” that got me. The lad sensed he’d touched a nerve.
Rove has no support phone line. No email address to be found either. They do have a live chat, though. Which replied to my message by saying it was offline.
A few minutes later the chat sprang to life and wrote:
Thank you for reaching out. We do not yet have a telephone number as we are a very small team and work remotely. Our email is [email protected]. If there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know. Thank you for using Rove!
A rare support message that manages to be an admission of helplessness and a point of pride at the same time. Terribly British of them, really. I emailed them — more out of curiosity than any hope of help. Then came the saga of “thirty emails in an hour, two calls to reception”. In the end, they did sort it out.
But the moment had passed. I booked the Andaz — as a man who had come through collective loneliness, a chat with no answers and the philosophy of Rove. Keep calm and book a Hyatt.
