Posted from San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta, Chile.
Walking into hostel Rural, I was pleased to see a very nicely laid out little common area. I’d just arrived from and all day bus journey and was a little weary – so the sun-kissed open garden, with hammocks and a ping pong table in the middle really was a welcome site. My friends, who were already in Chile, had booked a bed for me and there was a little confusion about who I was to begin with. A sign of things to come was the frosty glare I received from the large, old, angry lady huddled in her house (situated at the centre of the small complex). It turned out she was the owner of the place and that we’d meet again. I forgot about this misery guts though and met up with my friends, congratulating them on picking such a cool little spot…
After the first night, I woke to find my bag absolutely soaked through. I’d left it at the foot of my bed, a spot which also backed on to a bathroom. It turned out that this bathroom had dodgy pipes and regularly overflowed. This had happened in the night and both my bags were flooded with water. The reaction to this was shocking – first the miserable woman running the place tried to brush it off. I remonstrated for a while, pointing out that a couple of books had bee ruined and my Blackberry was completely fucked at which point she just got more angry with me, accusing me of trying it on. All my (freshly washed) clothes were soaked through, I demanded that she wash them – but again I was accused of trying to get something for free out of her ‘just leave them in the sun’ she said. Eventually she agreed to wash ‘some’, but only under absolute duress – this was a huge inconvenience to her and no apology was ever offered.
On top of the terrible attitude, we also found out we were paying 3 times the amount of other guests. With one more night to stay we tried to negotiate, but she simply wouldn’t budge. With nowhere else to stay in this tourist infested town, we had no option but to get fleeced by this miserable, unhelpful, arrogant rat bag.
Never, under any circumstances stay at this place.
My rating: 1/10
Details:
Hostal Rural
Calle Calama 257, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile