After about two hours of letdowns, we stumbled on the one place in the city with a vacancy. It was clean and the price was right, but—and this is a big but—the room had one bed. Not a king, but a cozy double bed stuffed into a remarkably cozy room. There was, in fact, nothing in the room but the bed.
This wasn’t the first time on my solo travels that I had shared a room with a just-meet-that-day friend, but it was surely the first time I’d shared a bed with a male friend. I was facing one of those traveling alone moments where I really wished I had a girlfriend with me, so I could turn to her and ask, “Is this really stupid of me, to share a room with a guy who could be on the lam for mass murder in the States?”
But I couldn’t ask my girlfriends, so I had to go with my instincts. For some reason—maybe it was the southern accent or gentility—I trusted this guy, so I agreed to share the room and bed. While you may be thinking, “this girl’s a dumb-dumb,” you’re doing so because you are probably in your home country reading this. You are not under foreign travel’s inebriating spell. Rational thought is on your side. It was not on mine.
My new bunkmate could tell I was tired, cranky, and dirty, so he gave me full reign of the room while he went in search of a computer with an internet connection. I took the time to shower and rest. Later that evening, he and I went out and met up with some friends I had made on my previous stopover. I made sure to tell them where I was staying, and when I would contact them next, just for a little insurance.
As you’ve probable guessed by now, I lived to tell the story. The young man I met on the bus was indeed a gentleman, more so than any other men I’ve slept beside in my own country. He ended up staying in Antigua longer than anticipated and became friends with my friends. He turned out to be a nice, fun guy.
