Aggrey Rwetsiba, a Ugandan delegate to the UN Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Colombia, finds himself in unusual accommodations: a motel normally destined for trysts, with rooms featuring sex swings and stripper poles.
Like other visitors to the Colombian city, his hotel booking fell through, and Rwetsiba had to make last-minute arrangements.
With traditional hotels bursting at the seams, hourly rate motels came to the rescue of stranded delegates like himself.
Photo: AFP
Showing Agence France-Presse (AFP) around his room in the Motel Deseos (“Desires”), the delegate points to the large double bed, walk-in shower and an unusual feature: a ceiling mirror.
Some of his clothes are draped on hangers from the shower screen, others are folded up in a small cubicle with one door inside the room and another that opens on the hallway.
Usually rented out for a few hours at a time, there are no wardrobes in the rooms. The double-doored cubicle is for staff to pass drinks to guests seeking seclusion.
Photo: AFP
“I’m not sure whether I’ve got the full understanding of what a motel should be, but I have seen some unique features ... like the mirror on the ceiling. I have never seen [that] in a hotel,” Rwetsiba said.
He also pointed to the lone wall socket next to the bed, rather than by the table where he needs to power his laptop.
“So the setup is quite different,” he said. “I have never seen a hotel with each room having a parking yard,” each enclosed, with a private door leading straight into the room.
Photo: AFP
Motel Deseos manager Diana Echeverry proudly showed AFP around the facility, with 40 rooms spread over two floors, and one wing set aside for a dozen COP16 delegates.
In the rest of the building, rooms feature such amenities as whirlpool baths, “Kama Sutra” loungers and dance poles.
“We have adapted our establishment a little in order to be able to host the guests of COP16 and foreigners,” Echeverry said.
Contacted at short notice by local authorities, she said the motel quickly worked out a daily rate — 150,000 pesos (US$34.63) per night — and introduced a breakfast service.
Room prices usually range from 65,000 to 100,000 pesos for three hours.
Staff also “took out the love swings, ‘love machines,’ Kama Sutra chairs and left the rooms without those kinds of items,” Echeverry said.
The biodiversity summit has been good for business, she added.
“It has ensured that the [delegates’] rooms are occupied during those days and ... the remaining rooms now rotate much more to meet the demands of our usual guests.”
Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder told reporters this week the city’s hotels were “100 percent” full, with Airbnbs, houses and apartments also rented out.
Initial expectations had been for 12,000 to 15,000 people to attend the COP16, but in the end, there were closer to 23,000 registered delegates, Eder said.
The Cali Chamber of Commerce said the city has 166 registered motels — more than anywhere else in Colombia.
Like elsewhere in Latin America, motels are generally places go to for a few private hours with a lover.
In Cali, they boast names such as “Kama Sutra,” “Cupido” and “Extasis.” Delighted with the amenities at Motel Deseos, Rwetsiba said he informed other colleagues, and there were now five Ugandan delegates in rooms “more comfortable” than many traditional hotels.
“It’s ... spacious. That’s why we are here. We are not complaining,” he said with a big smile. “We are all happy.”
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS