Hotel "Betania" — Hotel in Zamora

I stayed here for 4 nights during my solo bicycle tour from Cartagena through Colombia and Ecuador. Before writing this review I had acquired a reasonable idea of local accommodation standards and costs, as I had stayed in 15+ hotels and hospedajes in Ecuador, and perhaps 75 in Colombia. I speak Spanish and was therefore able to communicate well with all my host(s).||||Pluses||I had a fairly spacious room (#102) with 2 beds. My windows looked out onto a side street downtown, with good views of nearby mountains. I had a quiet pedestal fan. My bed was comfortable. The hot shower took a few minutes to become warm, after which it was very hot, with good flow. I had a bedside lamp and plenty of storage. The hotel had a large 4th-floor mirador with tables and chairs, good views, 110V, Wi-Fi, and a communal kitchen with refrigerator. There was a place to hand wash clothes and hang them to dry. 1 block away was a well-stocked TIA supermarket. 50 m away was the central market (for fruit etc). Both the owner/manager Soledad and her teenage son Amilkar were competent, helpful and friendly.||||Minuses||Each of the 3 floors had its own router. That outside my room (planta 2) was intermittent. The other 2 provided reasonably fast and reliable internet. Planta 3 router could be accessed from the 4th floor mirador, and from my room if I left the door open.||||There was some noise from the street during the day. This was not a problem at night. If one desires more peace, one could ask for an internal room. I liked the light and the views so I stayed where I was. ||||Summary||The room was good value at 15USD per person. I would stay there again.||||Note: Before choosing this hotel, I checked out 4 others:||||1. Hotel Everlast. Olga. $20 for OK room, fan, table, in-room Wi-Fi. A bit cramped. No view. Expensive. ||2. Hotel Gomar. $15. OK room, fan, but Wi-Fi slow.||3. Hotel Torres. $10. Small dark room, table. No fan. Wi-Fi OK but only near reception.||4. Hotel Wampushkar. This hotel was lower down than the others, near the river, and a good 10 minutes’ walk uphill to the central market and the TIA. A plus might have been a quieter stay, owing to its remote location. They wanted $23 pp for a smaller room than mine, with only 1 bed and not much of a view. This included breakfast (07-09h00). $34 for 2 beds/1 person (or $46 for 2 persons). The hotel had a small deck with a nice view of the river. However, this was inferior to the deck and the views at the Hotel Betania. ||||My rating: 5/5. Location as measured with my GPS:...

We had booked Hostal Betania because of its closeness to the bus terminal and good price. It also came with a free cancellation option until 18:00. Arriving at 16:30, we asked to see the room before accepting. They wanted to put us in a room with a window to a light shaft. That doesn't count as a window, I told the owner lady. The third room she showed us had reasonable day light coming in and once again mountain views. They were a bit unorganised. We had to ask for everything separately and later even have them fix the hot water and once again reinitiate the wifi box. Well, that was becoming an all too common occurrence in places. || Hotel Betania did not serve breakfast and we did not feel like getting ingredients to make our own breakfast in the shared kitchen, even though sitting on the terrace high under the roof would have been nice. Two doors down a little restaurant offered a 3-course menu for lunch and humitas with coffee. Yes, they were also prepared a continental breakfast. I was a bit sick of the same breakfast every morning and chose an humita. It was delicious! Around the corner we saw another little restaurant offering humitas, tamales, empanadas, toasts and...

Disappointing on four grounds. First, I found the hotel very noisy both during the day and night; rooms are not insulated against street noise, and the building is like an echo chamber magnifying any internal noise. Second, avoid Room 104 (and presumably the one above), as they have no external window - without aircon or fans, they can get incredibly stuffy. Third, my room does have a useless large internal window which, despite having curtains, lets in large amounts of artificial light during the night whenever the automatic sensors are triggered, further disturbing sleep. Fourth, this is the only hotel in Ecuador so far not to offer breakfast. Positives: friendly staff; very clean throughout; generally good wifi, and an attractive but underused terrace on the top floor. Overall, I've slept really badly here, and I suggest trying one of the six, eight or even ten other hotels - some seemingly new - in the compact...