HOTEL PUCARA La Rioja — Hotel in La Rioja

Hotel Pucara was the worst hotel experience I've ever had. How bad? We ended up calling the police and our check-out was done in the company of two officers, in order to ensure that we were able to leave safely with our belongings and would not be threatened. ||||We had phoned a day in advance to book two rooms for two nights at the hotel on the recommendation of a travel agent. We were informed that they were fully-booked, but that they had a "small chalet" they also rented out to guests. We accepted, as there wasn't much else available in La Rioja. When we arrived at the place in the evening, it looked pretty awful - rundown, dirty, and generally unprofessional, but at that stage we were exhausted after a long drive and couldn't face a fight. We were also told that there was a cat and dog in the gardens of the chalet, but that they shouldn't be a nuisance. We went out for dinner, collapsed into bed and left early the next day to visit a national park. It was when we returned that evening that the problems really started to emerge.||||I've never stayed in a rental property so poorly maintained. There were cobwebs all over the chairs and furniture, the duvets and blankets weren't properly clean, the paintwork was a mess, the doors to the bathroom and living room didn't have door handles, the towel rack was held up by sellotape, the advertised wifi didn't work and the property smelt. When we went to bed (we had an eight hour drive to Mendoza the next morning), the dog outside was still barking loudly and incessantly, making it completely impossible to fall asleep. By the time we had been trying to sleep unsuccessfully for two hours, we phoned the hotel to complain and asked them to do something about it, and for them to bring their own keys to the grounds so as not to disturb us any further. 20 minutes later there was loud banging on the gate and we eventually opened it to a man who claimed to be from the hotel (we had never seen him in the reception). We explained that the dog was making it impossible to sleep, and he told us that we just needed to untie the dog and it would probably stop. We explained we had no interest in having an unknown dog running wild around the grounds of the apartment we were paying for, that we didn't particularly like dogs, and that it might still make noise anyway: we wanted them to take the dog away. He refused to do so and said we could choose to leave; so we told him we were leaving and would go to return the keys to the (24h) hotel and collect our dry cleaning that we had left there, and settle the bill. The man demanded the keys back, despite the fact that we had never met him before and we wanted to return them to the place where we had been given them. We then contacted the police and spent a long while filing a complaint. ||||The police then offered to accompany us to the hotel (this is around 3am) to the hotel to collect our belongings. We paid for one night and the dry cleaning...

Elegimos este hotel para hospedarnos en La Rioja en medio de una visita relámpago que hicimos al Talampaya. Ellos mismos lo presentan como un hotel boutique y, como tal, no decepciona. En mi caso, la habitación era de una persona. Tenía un tamaño normal, era acogedora, tenía TV LED, aire acondicionado (reconozco que no averigüé si era sólo frío o frío/calor) y un escritorio enorme donde tenías que usar la cama como silla. Una cosa me pareció rarísima: el tamaño del baño. Tenía casi la misma cantidad de metros cuadrados que el resto de la habitación, lo que habla que la estructura anterior era de una casona. Quizás uno de los principales puntos en contra es la insonorización. Creo que en estos lugares se hace un abuso del durlock que ya roza lo ilógico. Por lo que, si te toca una habitación que comparta pared con otra, no sólo vas a escuchar el ruido de la cadena o de la ducha, también vas a oir a tus vecinos charlar, caminar, moverse en la cama y hasta roncar. Así que si vas en pareja y te gusta el chirlo o te cabe el gritito, quizás no es el lugar indicado. La atención es muy buena, son súper atentos, es un hotel familiar y se nota que hay mucho esmero y cuidado para con el huesped. En cuanto al desayuno, es realmente abundante y casero. Te hacen todo en el lugar, incluido facturas y criollos (o como se llame en La Rioja ese tipo de bizcocho). Una cosa que me pareció destacable es que, pese a que el café que te sirven es instantáneo, previamente te lo baten y eso es un gesto de amor que le tira la media estrella más para las 4.

Tip: publican sus habitaciones en Booking y suelen tener un descuento bastante interesante respecto al valor que tienen de lista.

Volveré a La Rioja y, de seguro,...

Not very much choice in La Rioja so decided to stay in the small hotel Pucara. The only reason for being there was to visit Talampaya national park. I emailed before arriving whether excursion to Talampaya and/or bicycle rent was available. No problem, they confirmed. Upon arrival no excursion/other activities possible. The hotel is a guest house with no facilities, out of city centre, 15 mns walk. La Rioja has nothing to offer. So stuck for 2 days doing nothing, waiting for the night bus to Salta.||Positive staff is...