THE TATTOO THAT GOT US KICKED OUT OF A HOSTEL

It was my second time in Medellín, Colombia, and I had returned to Rock Hostel in Laureles. I had stayed there the year before and already connected the place with countless memories, friendships, and slightly questionable decisions.
This time, I had brought a few creative tools with me that I wanted to practise using while travelling. One of them was a stick-and-poke tattoo kit.

Until then, I had given three people stick-and-poke tattoos and tattooed one person with a machine. I was still very much a beginner, but I wanted to gain more experience. Tattoos felt especially meaningful within the travelling community: a small, permanent memory that one person could give to another.

One morning, I joined the hostel breakfast, which consisted of arepas, frijoles, rice, and eggs. I had been staying at the hostel for a while and already knew almost everyone, but that morning, a new guest sat down at the table.
He was Russian and had just arrived from Peru on his motorbike.

His story immediately reminded me of another Russian man I had met while travelling. We had been in a relationship in Mexico and had travelled together on his motorbike, so I started telling the new guest about him.

Then came the first strange coincidence of the day.

The two men had recently met in Peru and spent time together.

The world suddenly felt ridiculously small.

We continued talking, and he told me that he had started making travel vlogs. What stood out most about him, however, was the number of tattoos covering his body.

I told him that I loved tattoos too and had recently started learning how to create them myself.

“If you need someone to practise on, you can tattoo me,” he said.

It was my final day at the hostel, and I was leaving for Cartagena the next day. We only had a few hours, but apparently that was enough for both of us. “Let’s do it,” I said. We moved directly from the breakfast table to the hostel’s common area. Within about ten minutes, he had chosen a design. I drew it onto his skin, prepared my equipment, and started giving a Russian motorcyclist I had met that morning a stick-and-poke tattoo on the hostel couch.

That was when the owner walked in.

He told us that we couldn’t tattoo inside the hostel. If the guest developed an infection, he explained, the hostel could be blamed and he could get into trouble.

In hindsight, his concern was not entirely unreasonable.

We listened to him and stopped.

For approximately five minutes.

Then we started tattooing again.

The owner was not impressed by our brief interpretation of his rule. When he discovered us continuing the tattoo, he threw both of us out of the hostel.

It was my final night there, so the timing could have been worse. Our main problem was that the tattoo wasn’t finished. With nowhere else to go, we carried everything outside, set ourselves up on the ground in front of the hostel, and continued there.
As I worked, people walking past began stopping to watch. Some asked whether I tattooed regularly. Others wanted to know whether they could book appointments with me. One or two even asked for my Instagram so they could contact me about getting their own tattoos.

When the tattoo was finished, the Russian traveller offered to pay me.

I hadn’t asked him for money and hadn’t expected anything. I had seen it as another opportunity to practise and create a permanent travel memory for someone I had only met that morning.

But he insisted.

That was the first money I ever earned from tattooing.

That morning, I had simply joined the hostel breakfast.

By the afternoon, I had discovered an impossible connection between two Russian motorcyclists, started an impulsive tattoo, been thrown out of my hostel, moved my temporary tattoo studio onto the pavement, attracted potential customers, and become a paid tattoo artist for the first time.

All because a stranger at the breakfast table had said, “You can tattoo me.”

That is how I got kicked out of a hostel on my final night in Medellín- and earned my first money from tattooing on the pavement outside.