Posted by There are several small hostals spread across the old town of Quito and we managed to find one which had a pretty good location – it was within easy walking distance from the main square of the old town Plaza Grande and the many old churches in the city. And just across the street and down a few stairs you could find the most famous dinning street of the city – the La Ronda Street. Unfortunately we didn’t take full advantages of this since we stayed in town on Sunday and Tuesday when the street isn’t all that active – unlike Thursday till Saturday when it is really busy.
The hotel is small with only about 7 rooms – most had private toilet and shower – but there might be two with a shared toilet. One room was very big with a big living room and kitchen. It was the only room with a balcony facing the street below. It could have four guests who would be staying in two small rooms above the living area. Our room was a bit more average – though we did have two bed rooms one of which were pretty small which could be used if you were travelling with kids. This room was a little irregularly shaped since a stair to the roof cut through the room taking a bit of the space of the room making it a bit dangerous to walk around inside the room. The bath room was a bit away from the bedrooms since it was located on the other end of a walkway which made the entrance to the room.
The rooms are located around an inner courtyard. The courtyard was originally open – but the owner had put a roof on top of the house to shield the courtyard of the house to make it a nice reception area where you could stay and use the computers during your visit to Quito if you had the need. The courtyard used to have another function. Apparently it had been used as a stable by the former owners and the rooms at the ground floor had been used for livestock. The former owners then lived above in the nicer rooms. If Carlos hadn’t told the story I would never had guest the ground floor of the hostal had been a stable since there really wasn’t any indications left – they must have done a very through remodeling of the house when they took it over. Apparently the remodeling isn’t done yet and maybe the top will be made into a nicer roof top terrace later this year making the place an even better place to stay.
The internet was working fairly well and there was a decent breakfast included in the price in the morning. We had booked an airport pickup for 30 usd when we arrived. Fortunately Carlos waited for us even though we came late since one bag had gone missing on the flight.
The hostal was almost empty during our stay. Apparently this was because of the earthquake in Ecuador earlier in the year. The earthquake was far away from Quito – and if you hadn’t heard about it you wouldn’t be able to see it in Quito since there hadn’t been any destruction at all in Quito.
FrejaTravels 