Las Vicuñas — Hotel in Putre

Hotel las Vicuñas offers Spartan but acceptable accommodation and friendly English-speaking management. Dorm-like rooms have comfortable beds and hot-water showers which are welcome in a region where some hostels pipe in fresh snow melt. There are extra blankets but you may need to ask for more because it freezes here every night of the year and rooms are not heated. Breakfast is adequate considering the effort required to stock a larder so far from markets of any size.||||Note: At 11,500 ft. Putre is a necessary altitude acclamation stop in route to Lauca National Park, and beyond, on the Andean high plateau known as the altiplano. The immense altiplano rises to 15,000 feet beyond Putre and pretty much remains at that altitude while 20,000+ ft. peaks rise above it. Don’t confuse the altiplano with the excessively popular tourist venues further south in the Atacama Desert. The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) publishes advice for high altitude travel on their site: ...

We arrive in putre without any reservation and were willing to spend 2 days here. The guy at the front desk found a way to give us a room for these two nights. ||The staff from the hotel (reception and restaurant) doesn't speak any English but was really kind, nice and helpful during our stay.||The hotel is well located, first building on the right side when you reach putre. The decoration and cleanness of the shared facilities could be improved.||The hotel has a restaurant (recommended, good food and great atmosphere), laundry service (way too expensive in my opinion), pong pong table,...||The room are only heated with electrical heaters but we had plenty banquets so did not suffer from the cold. The second night, we heard our neighbors speaking and listening to TV until 2am, the phonic isolation is like in most hotel in chile, really bad.||The bathroom cleanness has to be improved. The shower was pretty good, hot water and...

Hotel is conveniently located near the entrance of Putre. Accommodations are basic but very comfortable with electrical heater in the room, great wifi and hot shower. For the first time in weeks in Peru and Chile we even had to mix the hot water with cold water! The hotel needs some renovation but our two night stay was very pleasant. Dinner and breakfast were excellent and plentiful. The best was Heinz, the hotel owner. He helped us plan our 3 day stay and gave us an itinerary in the Las Vicunas reserve that are well hidden and offer some amazing wildlife spotting opportunities. On this road we did not see anyone! In fact, the road is not even on Google maps. This was one of the highlight of our tour. Heinz knows all the tricks and places to go to. He also helped us get high quality gasoline for our car. Would...