Dusk at a hotel de paso

On my first night in Buenos Aires, I stumbled into a city centre hotel at midnight, anxious to sleep off a long flight.

"How many hours?" asked the stern-looking receptionist at the Kansas Hotel, speaking from behind bullet-proof glass and a military moustache.

A well-dressed couple breezed in behind me without a stick of baggage, handing over $30 for an hour's worth of hotel hospitality and a bottle of chilled Mendoza wine.

My foggy brain settled for 12 hours' worth of slumber. I wondered if I needed to rent a towel or book time on the toilet, in case there was a rush on the facilities.

It was only when I got to room 202 - where I was greeted by a variety of odd furniture installations, including a rocking horse that was not child-friendly - that the true nature of the establishment finally dawned on me. The Kansas, immaculate and expensive like hundreds of other such hotels in Buenos Aires, is a hotel de paso, a stop-gap solution to the growing housing crisis in Latin America, where several generations cohabit in small family apartments.

Come twilight in Buenos Aires, the city's rambling parks and plazas buzz with the murmur of romantic couples gently whispering to each other as they share a quiet moment. Many couples engage in amorous horseplay that falls only a fraction short of public indecency.

Park-keepers, whistle in hand, fire warning salvos at the worst offenders before expelling couples who stray beyond the limit of public tolerance.

One notable aspect of the nightly love-ins is their cross-class nature, as middle-aged men loosen up their ties and wrap themselves around women in pencil skirts, their office folders left carelessly at their side.

As night falls, couples with a little cash to spare take their yearnings to one of the short-stay hotels, then arrive home just after the rush-hour traffic.

It was only in subsequent dinner-party conversation that I realised just how respected the whole short-stay hotel system is in Argentina. It begins as a rite of passage, in which teenagers in love (or lust) can find an hour of private time away from parental vigilance.

When I told Argentinian friends that there were no comparable arrangements in Ireland, they looked amazed.

"So where do the Irish go?" asked one friend. My instinctive reaction was to respond "to hell", after years of Catholic school indoctrination. The more honest answer these days, I suppose, would be Ibiza or camping along the Wicklow Way.

The hotels de paso are light years away from the notion of being a seedy brothels, their modest facades sitting comfortably beside neighbourhood bakeries or pizzerias. As in the broader hotel trade, the establishments vary in quality from one star to five, with health inspectors making spot-checks to ensure that hygiene standards are maintained.

"Why should we be ashamed of it?" asked asks says Veronica Diz, a legal secretary, of the short-stay system. "Sure our own parents did the same thing. It's a tradition at this stage."

With rising property prices and exorbitant rents frequently keeping Irish youths at home until their 30s these days, Tiger entrepreneurs should take note.