Hostal Las Kañas — Hotel in San Pedro de Atacama

This place earned the stars with my shower combat (more on that in a minute). The whole layout is is compact but cozy. It provides common areas that are good for meeting others, or space if that’s what you want. A large second story dining area was nice. The secure parking was great. The common kitchen was useful and stocked with the basics… with some charm. The bed was… slept in by lots of people. But hey. It’s a hostel. Location? Perfect. The shower? This is a case of a thing that irritates me, then becomes a favorite characteristic. The water pressure to the shower head is strong, but sometimes stronger. The shower head itself was spraying water in several directions in addition to the main streams. Little spots of air sounded like growling as they came they the line and I wrestled the settings for temperature. Hot. To hot. Hell. Perfect. Hot again. 😂 I was fully entertained. Cannot...

Considering its location in the middle of a desert, Las Kañas is a pretty average hostel. There is hot water, a kitchen and wifi. The staff are also very friendly. Beyond that, there're a couple of key issues with the hostel||||Shared rooms are a little cramped though and the wifi signal is pretty weak even in the common areas (forget about getting any wifi in the rooms). It also doesn't make sense to hang around in the common areas (which are all outdoors and extremely cold outside of the summer season) just to use the wifi. There are only two showers and one bathroom for each gender so be prepared to wait for quite abit. Breakfast is not provided and the hostel is a good 10 minutes walk to the town center.||||I would stay here if there are no other options but San Pedro is a tourist town and there're many options closer...

I stayed at the Las Kanas with three other friends for three nights. On the second night we were asked to move rooms which seemed odd because we were the only people staying in the hostel. The woman who was running the hostel was unfriendly to say the least and she was unable to give us any information about the city, or tours around the area, or even a map. The wifi at the hostel was on and off and even when it did work, it only reached a few meters from reception. On the last day we checked out at noon and had booked bus tickets for 6pm. We were told we could not use the kitchen in the hostel, nor store our food in the fridge, or use the bathrooms. All in all not a pleasant...