Hostal pacifico — Hotel in Arica

A wonderful hotel!!!! The owners are so friendly and helpful and funny, always happy to help, always joking with my friend (who speaks Spanish), and always putting up with my own poor attempts at their language!||The hotel is near the other end of Calle "21 de Mayo" from the centre, so an easy walk past the shops to get to the plaza, museums, El Morro, etc. Plenty of good restaurants nearby too.||As for the room, we had a twin room with private bathroom, and it was clean and well furnished. It is basic, but still very good, and all the rooms are set off a sunny corridor lined with cactuses.||It is a very good price, especially as they are so friendly. You will have to pay the 19% tax because they don't have the system to avoid it, but the prices quoted online already include the tax (at least it did for us) so you are still getting a brilliant deal. And they even gave us a slight discount for extra nights. Plus it includes a "snack breakfast" which was nice too - crackers, cake,...

The positives were the room while old was clean and the beds not that bad. The shower had hot water after a few minutes of cold that is. It was only 3 blocks from the main street/ pedestrian plaza.||The negatives were when we arrived they didn't have any record of our reservation despite booking 2 days earlier via Bookings.com. They did find us a room however and all was good till we went to pay. They said they couldn't accept US$ due to some local authority requirement? Also they wanted 22,000 Pesos (about US$32) instead of the US$27 we booked on Bookings.com. So we had to go find an ATM to get more Pesos as we'd run them down as we were crossing into Peru...

Although the staff here speak minimal English, they're suuuuuuuuuuper friendly! They let us check in an hour early, and sit in the dining area for hours as we had a late bus to San Pedro de Atacama. I asked one of the staff members for a recommendation on where to eat, and he actually walked me there which I thought was lovely and hilarious. The rooms are decent enough, and the shared...