Miraflores Experience

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FoFor all you budding travelers out there I would like to begin with do not under any circumstances go to the HI hostel in Lima unless you to want not only to be ripped off in a sneaky way but also where the lack of customer care makes it all the worse.

Only having a day in Lima I decided that it wasn't worth me trying to see the sights of this big city as it would take a long time and a lot of money to get nowhere. So after being told that the HI hostel was like a resort with a swimming pool in a nice area of town it sounded perfect.

Now this hostel was already going to be more expensive than the most expensive hotel or hostel that I had stayed in so far (even Ipanema Rio the place next to Louis Vuitton), there was no breakfast included (v. unusual) but as it was only for a day I thought to hell with it. On arriving the prices were in American dollars which was fine but as like most people traveling Peru I was using the Peruvian Sole, the hostel still accepted the Sole but gave you a rate nearly 20% less than the actual exchange rate (therefore sneakily putting a hidden 20% on the cost). OK I thought that's business. When I asked them to order a taxi to the airport it was going to be 60 Soles, a bit expensive I thought so while out shopping I negotiated with another taxi driver for 20! Then it was check out at 12.30pm (so the sign said at reception) and while chilling around the pool the woman who worked there kept reminding me that it was check out and it was at 12pm.......so any other you who know me will know what happened next, yes I continued to lounge around the pool until the very last minute of check out. I still had just over an hour until I needed to go to the airport so asked to keep my things in storage to be told that too was going to cost me - By this stage I wasn't surprised and almost expected it so handed over a 100 Soles bill knowing full well that they wouldn’t want to change it. I was told to pay on my return and as I was never asked for it decided to never offer.

The hostel being a rip off was only the half of it. My room was a four bed dorm but there was hardly enough room for a double bed let alone two bunk beds and with a shared bathroom they were definitely trying to squeeze as much out of you as possible. On arriving at 1pm I was introduced to one of my room mates who was a Japanese woman in her late 40's still in her Pajama's, she's had a nice lye in I thought. Then returning at 10pm she was still in the same position guarding the lock to the door and I had to practically bang the door down before she would let me in my own room. It turned out that she was traveling on her own could hardly speak a word of English and couldn't speak a work of Spanish, she constantly complained how rude that these people couldn't speak English (not that she could). Why ever she would come traveling on her own not knowing either of these languages went straight over my head, I mean that's a perfect way to isolate yourself and make it as hard as possible (she wasn't an inspiration like Rita, just a plain and out loon).I knew straight away that she was weird as she kept chatting to me in Japanese so I decided to give her a few hours to get to sleep before I returned.

The fun and games really began now. For ease and convenience I will call her Lou (short for Loopy Lou).

When trying to enter the room Lou had took it upon herself to lock the door and keep the key under her pillow but then muttered aggressively in Japanese when anybody tried to get back into the room. Throughout the night she constantly turned the light on, shouted and muttered in Japanese and was a general pain in the backside. The moaning and groaning were something like the exorcist and the movement of the bed was like being Ellen McArthur in the middle of the Atlantic on her little vessel. The final straw however was when I went to the toilet in the middle of the night and she grabbed my leg while trying to get back on the bunk bed and tried pulling back down to ground. I flipped, she started screaming what I can only guess as Obscenities in Japanese and I let it rip, the other girls soon joined in and I told her that she knows I can’t understand her so stop bloody speaking to me in Japanese (Forget the respect thy older when they are trying to cause serious head injuries). Finally everything calmed but at 7am when Lou decided it was time to get up the door was wide open, she turned the light on and opened the curtains......This just added to my distress so when I asked to put a stop to it she exclaimed it's morning now. "Just because you want to get up it doesn't mean that we all do" and I slammed the door shut behind her. Our Lou, not to leave quietly ran off with the key and continued to pop her head back in every few minutes just to see if she could annoy us. I then spent the next 2 hours laughing and exchanging stories with my room mates, but quietly I know that we were all relieved that we had managed to get through the night without her slitting our throats. Not surprising that she was up all night I guess as she had certainly had all day to sleep.........By far the most weirdest experience of any other through both my times traveling.

When I finally left the hostel I was carrying my nicely weighted backpack over the front garden which was only full of bloody holes between the paving slabs. I fell a cropper, sprained my foot and then had to continue with small talk in my best Spanglish throughout the whole 30 minutes journey to the taxi driver who had come and picked me up off the ground! Goodbye and Good riddance

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Comments

[Lisa Bx]

3 Points!!!!
When I started to read this I had to check the web addy as I thought I was on the Watchdog site!!!! Sencondly you sure it was Loopy Lou as I seen her coming out of G2 just the other morning, I know she never makes sense but is she really Japanese?????? Hehehehehehheheehehe! How many times can you sprain you ankle in one year then Nat?