The penny drops

While walking back to our apartment tonight I suddenly realized why the hotel across the street, though in a beautiful old building, with a perfectly new-looking sign, never seems to be open during the day. All the shutters on the windows are pulled down.

But at night, on some of the rooms, they're up partway, and the reception area's open.

This all clicked as I glanced over and saw an older man standing in the tiny lobby waiting for a younger woman to make a transaction at the reception desk.

Ohhhh. It's a "telo."

The word is "hotel" backwards and in lunfardo, the Buenos Aires argot, it means, as I saw it rather nicely described somewhere, a "pay-per-hour love motel."

I may confirm my suspicions with the guys next door, who man the parking garage at most hours of the day and night. But I'm not sure I need to. After all, it's above "Eden," the "international club," whose sign displays a woman proffering an apple.

And here, in another rather fancy hotel nearby (see comment below), is the shower -- oddly set up so you can see in from the bedroom. Hmmm.