The Address Did Not Exist and Neither Did the Hotel

The photos were beautiful. That is how these things get you. A restored townhouse in the harbour district of Peleth, whitewashed walls, a courtyard with a lemon tree and a little fountain, reviews glowing in three languages. The price was low but not suspiciously low, and the booking site looked legitimate, so I paid the whole stay upfront because that was the only option they offered. Non-refundable, but who cancels a trip they have planned for a year.

I flew in tired and happy and showed the address to the taxi driver, and he frowned at his phone, and drove me twenty minutes to a narrow street that sloped down toward the water. He stopped, checked the number twice, and turned around in his seat with a look I have since learned to dread. This is it, he said. But there is no hotel here.

He was right. The building at that number was a shuttered shell. Windows boarded with grey plywood, a rusted grille chained across the door, weeds coming up through the step. A cat lived in it, judging by the smell. There was no fountain, no lemon tree, no courtyard, no anything. Just a dead building on a quiet street where a woman was hanging washing from a balcony above.

I stood on the pavement in the heat with my suitcase and refused to believe it for a while. I called the phone number on my booking. It rang out to a voice mailbox that was full. I tried the booking site messaging system, which showed my host as still active, five star rated, last online two hours ago. I messaged. Nothing. The taxi driver, bless him, waited, and eventually called up to the woman on the balcony. She leaned over and said, in the tone of someone who has said it before, that there had not been a hotel on that street in years, that other tourists had come looking too, standing exactly where I was standing.