Learn Spanish (Latin America): He cruzado muchas fronteras, pero hoy no salí del hostal. - I have crossed many borders, but today I didn't leave the hostel.

This perfectly captures the Latin American approach to the past! We use the present perfect (he cruzado) for general life experiences, meaning 'I have crossed' at some unspecified time in my life. However, for a finished action that happened today, Latin American speakers use the preterite (salí). While in Spain you might hear hoy no he salido, Latin America prefers the preterite for closed events, even if they happened hoy (today).

I noticed it says del hostal. Why isn't it de el hostal?

This is a mandatory contraction from earlier lessons that is easy to forget! Whenever the preposition de (from/of) is followed right away by the masculine article el (the), they must squish together into del. Because hostal is a masculine noun, we say del hostal (from the hostel). Note that this contraction only happens with the article el, not the pronoun él (he).

Is hostal just another word for hotel?

Not quite! An hotel is a standard hotel, whereas an hostal is typically a budget-friendly guesthouse or a youth hostel where you might share a dorm room or a bathroom. Since the speaker is talking about crossing borders and backpacking, hostal is the perfect vocabulary word here.