Difference between Mexican hotels and motels

A little something the uninformed may find humerous.

If you’re traveling in Mexico, it’s getting late and you need a place to spend the night, do you know the difference between a hotel and a motel?

Hotels are places where you spend the night. We’re very familiar with the concept in the US. Motels on the other hand tend to be brightly colored, often with high concrete walls, and are rented by the hour. (I’ll let you, my intelligent reader, figure that one out). Many of them even feature a garage, or a curtain, so that when you get out of your car, you have total privacy. I don’t know if they’re used primarily for extramarital affairs, or just a little gettaway for husbands and wives wanting a little privacy. I’d guess it’s a little of both.

One of the nicest places I’ve ever spent the night in Mexico was a motel in Veracruz, coming back up from Oaxaca after a long trip. The price was 30 bucks for the night, and we shared it amoung 6 guys. (That’s 5 bucks a piece for those intimidated by mathematics). One entire wall was covered with a mirror, the bathroom featured a heart-shaped bathtub, and there was a picture straight from 1982 of a guy massaging a super-model’s shoulders on the wall. Why was it so nice? Well the main thing is that it had hot water. Hotel Mante, where I’m staying now, has warm water, at best. (It’s not bad, just not hot). [Update: I just took a shower in the morning, and the water's actually hot. It's been luke warm in the evenings.] The other thing that made it nice was a king size bed, which three of us shared comfortably.

The people that rented us the room either thought we were seriously deviant, or completely clueless. In actually, we were gringos who just didn’t care what they thought, and wanted a nice place to stay after three weeks in the field. And trust me, after three weeks in a tent, this motel was the nicest place I’d ever seen.

I just thought it worth posting about because we don’t quite have an equivalent in the US.