Hostel Cough

I’m sure many of you who have talked to me since I left in April have noticed that I’ve been sick several times already. And not just altitude sick, which all of my blog readers know about, but proper cold and cough sick.

Why the hell is she sick all of the time? She has no job, she can sleep as long as she wants every day, what gives?

How about this: I sleep in a harbor of sick, malnourished, ill-behaving mostly 20-somethings every night. And I have, in turn, become one of those sick, malnourished (read: nourished poorly, not undernourished), ill-behaving people.

Most of us spend-thrifty backpackers spend the nights in dorms that typically house between 6 and 10 people. These dorm rooms have bunk beds with mattresses that are god knows how old and have had several things I don’t even want to think about done on them (i.e. remember when there were 2 naked people in my bed one night??) The cleanest thing in these rooms is the (hopefully) clean set of sheets that are put on top of this filthy mattress. The bathrooms and dorm floors are cleaned daily, but in my experience thus far, backpackers are filthy animals, closely resembling my former 14-year old self who threw shit everywhere, never being mindful of crumbs or really just not being mindful of anything.

So, here’s how it goes: You get into a new hostel, you find a space for your backpack, you claim that spot as your own, then you do the same with a locker for your important stuff, like your camera and laptop. You then throw something on your bed so people know it’s yours and to alert them that you have arrived in their room (this tactic can backfire on you when you have 2 naked people sleep in your bed who leave the hostel the next day thus confusing the cleaning lady who then takes your stuff and assumes it is garbage.) Later that day, when you are all in bed, sometime between nap time (4pm - 8pm) and sleep time (12am - 7am), when you’re all laying in bed, you hear him. Yes, you hear “the cougher” as I’ve named him. He is the person who will (re)infect you with “hostel cough” (another Alison original.)

What proceeds is a no-brainer. Everyone stays out beyond a time when any normal person should stay awake, we all drink booze, eat poorly or not at all, and lastly, pick up the dreaded hostel cough.

Hostel cough can then go one of two ways: you can either kick it somehow (I haven’t figured this out yet, but maybe by reinfecting someone else? Like maybe if you infect at least 5 more people, hostel cough gives you a get out of jail free card??) or you keep hostel cough for a while and often it turns into “hostel sick.”

Sadly, for me, I have been the cougher in the dorm room several times who has infected others. Let me be clear, I do not blame myself whatsoever... I instead choose to blame Hostel Cough himself who I now imagine as a nasty little green man with a snarling face, long nails, and gimpy left leg.

And now, yes, I have it yet again. Figures, I was just at another “party hostel,” treating my body to a great deal of abuse and staying with 7 other people who probably have been passing hostel cough back and forth for weeks or months. I am now on a bus, coughing my lungs out, Hostel Cough dancing around the bus, jumping all over my poor bus-mates. I'll test my theory now and see what happens if I infect the whole bus... perhaps I'll feel like a million bucks tomorrow!