Thirty minutes later, our driver pulled up in front of a hotel and helped us unload our backpacks. As he pulled away, Josh and I gave each other a sideways glance. We were both surprised and confused to be standing outside of a hotel, since the Airbnb we had reserved was supposed to be an apartment. The address on the outside of the building matched the address listed on the Airbnb website, so we decided to go inside. Maybe it was a combination of traveling for so long, lack of sleep and oxygen deprivation, but as soon as we walked into the hotel, it was as if the six years I had spent studying Spanish in high school and college were had never happened. After a few seconds of blankly staring at the man working behind the reception counter, I finally managed to blurt out: "Somos Abby y Josh de los Estados Unidos." ("We are Abby and Josh from the United States.")
Our names were nowhere to be found on his list of reservations. He looked just as confused as we were. "Tenemos un reservacion de Airbnb" ("We have an Airbnb reservation"), I went on. All of a sudden, the man started speaking very quickly—too quickly for us to understand. Despite the language barrier, we knew what was happening: we were in the wrong place.
After another minute or two of politely trying to understand my broken Spanish, the hotel staff let us sit down and use their WiFi to try and contact our Airbnb host. We got no response from the host. I decided to re-open my map app. The pin for our reservation was showing a completely different location than the address that was listed on the website, about two blocks north of the hotel. We decided to grab our bags and head in that direction.
