Jen has asthma. Not the kind of asthma which afflicts your buddy Joe, that poor SOB who had to cut his smoking down to 1/2 a pack a day. We're talking about the kind of asthma that afflicts Carol's son in As Good As It Gets, where a whiff of smoke or strong perfume can land you in a hospital.
Anyway, one day we started smelling smoke. A lot of smoke. Its source was not difficult to find: a young Spanish woman was smoking at the bottom of the stairs, about 15 feet below our work area. We explained the severity of the problem, & she agreed not to smoke there again.
Over the course of the next few days, we smelled smoke several times. One day when it was particularly bad, Jen traced the source to the 3rd floor, where the Spanish woman (named Nuria) was once again sitting with her laptop & smoking on the stairs. Jen left without a word & Nuria (who no doubt heard Jen's unflattering remarks about smoke & smokers) stopped smoking in the stairwell.
Everything was fine for a while. But, inevitably, we started smelling smoke again. It was, of course, Nuria. This time she was smoking in her room, but the smoke was drifting outside & coming in through our window.
We went up & spoke to Nuria again (how many times can I use the word "again" in one post?) & asked her how long she was planning to stay. She said she wasn't sure, but uttered two words which, like "Trump Administration", struck horror into our hearts: maybe 6 months.
Eeeek!
Jen, who was having an asthma attack at this point & was in no mood for niceties, told Nuria that her smoking was endangering her health (using slightly different words). Nuria countered that smoking was allowed in the hostel. Jen asked her if she'd like to pay for her hospital bills. Then things got interesting...
Nuria, who had been standing in her doorway, suddenly started plodding menacingly toward Jen, who had been standing near the stairs about 15 feet away, & didn't stop. When she got within a foot of Jen's face, Jen, startled by the threatening invasion, slapped her. Then Nuria punched her back & I found myself in the middle of a full-on late-night cat fight!
It was incredible, surreal, and, dare i say, a little sexy?
At one point, Jen threatened to call the police (because it smelled a bit like Nuria was smoking marijuana) & Nuria threatened to oblige her (I say "threatened" because only a fool calls the Mexican police without an emergency). At another point, we all went down to speak to Ramon. Alas, there was no answer at his door, despite the promise, on sites like hostelworld, of "24 Hour Reception" at Hostel Kankun.
Eventually I managed to calm things down, downplaying the (well-deserved) bitch-slap & explaining to Nuria that Jen was having a very difficult time & that you might get punched when you attack someone when they are having trouble breathing. (I have a feeling this was not her first time being slapped.) Nuria countered that she too was having a rough time & attributed Jen's asthma to "psychosomatic" factors. Nice.
Luckily, things simmered down & everything was fine for a day (an hour?) or two. Then, inevitably, we smelled smoke again. Do I really need to mention that it was, of course, Nuria? This time, incredibly, she was smoking not in her room or in the stairwell... but in Ramon's office, directly beneath our room, where she had started hanging out... because, really, who doesn't visit Cancun to hang out all day in a dank office with a crusty, cantankerous hostel-keeper?
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| Ramon, caught smiling |
We soon spoke to Ramon, who decreed that Nuria would be allowed to smoke in his office. Moreover, he explained that, while he did not enjoy smoking himself, he did enjoy entertaining smokers in his office. (Hey, you might too if you were a humorless boor keen to die from second-hand smoke.) He left out the part about "especially when it is a woman who pronounces her name "Nudia" & is young enough to be my granddaughter." He also left out the part about "even when the door is open, allowing smoke to flow into the room of another guest to whom I have promised a smoke-free home & for whom smoke could possibly trigger a life-threatening asthma attack."
To his credit, Ramon did agree to make our "wing" a smoke-free area & to post a sign to that effect. You might have guessed that he never did post a sign & "accidentally" assigned the room beside ours to a chain-smoking Italian.
Oh, one last thing I need to mention: Almost every other hostel in Cancun is smoke-free. And if you look up Hostel Kankun on, eg, hostelworld, you'll notice that, listed among its so-called amenities, are "Smoking" and "Non-smoking".
Don't be fooled: visitors looking for a non-smoking hostel might be disappointed, just like visitors looking for the hostel's hot tub (also listed among its amenities) might be disappointed. There used to be a "warm tub" in Room 4D, but it was 16" wide & smelled like fish, & you had to share it with our turtle, Grumpy!
Funny thing is... Grumpy looks a bit like Nuria will in 60 years...
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