Hotel Pez de Oro — Hotel in Santa Rosa

We spent two days there and were the only clients! The place is lovely - rustic and colourful bungalows right by the ocean - but the extra details that would make a wow are lacking. The staff do the minimum required (absolutely no proactivity, they never asked if we were ok or offered anything), the food is just average, there are no cushions on the wooden chairs, no music in the restaurant. ||The power went out the second night an never came back the day after - at least we had a candle in the room - which ended up as an evening in our hot bungalow, all windows closed, waiting for the storm to pass!||The tour scam||As soon as we arrived, two guys came to our bungalow to offer us a mangrove tour and a walk to see the turtles in the beach at night. I was interested to do these tours and one of them identified himself as a worker at Cecon (the organisation working for the conservation of the turtles). I accepted too fast, without checking at Cecon first, and ended up paying 3 times the prices (150 Q per person instead of 50 Q with Cecon). The mangrove tour at 5:00 in the morning was very nice thought, but we never made it for the tour on the beach because of a big thunderstorm that night. I was quite mad the day after when I asked at Cecon the price of a mangrove tour. The guy had lied to us about working at Cecon. After I booked the tour, I asked about these guys at the hotel and have been told they were honest. Yeah right! They just shouldn't let them in the first place, but maybe the get their cut...

We visited their lovely restaurant for lunch and IMMEDIATELY canceled our reservations in the loud concrete bunker of a hotel down the street. Lovely little cabanas interspersed with beautiful plants and mature coconut palms. Being on the less crowded end of the beach it was "muy tranquilo" and a nice family place with two pools (one for kids/parents, another for adults). The Italian food with a seafood flair was good and filling. As for the heat in the rooms, just going to bed under the fan after a nice swim at about 10 pm did the trick, as the sea breeze kicks in about that time to cool things down. Magdalena and her staff were always helpful and gracious (love the agua frescas de jamaica) and be sure to ask for a mangrove tour with the fabulous Elias. As the only English speakers on a busy weekend I can only say the Latinos know how to really relax, and this place has a hammock on every porch! Falling asleep while listening to the boom of the surf will probably be one of our favorite memories of our Guatemala...

This little hotel is a GEM. Right on the beach, and with a little pool as well. Very clean, adorable rooms, affordable (if you don't think so, check out the prices of other hotels in Monterrico), super friendly staff (does Guatemala have any other kind?) and private parking for our motorcycles. No air conditioning though and, strangely, it's hotter at night than in the daytime - that was the only thing that was a big drawback, but hotels with aircon are SO expensive. FYI, you aren't in an entirely closed space in your room: there is a big gap between the walls and the thatched roof, by design - yet we were never bothered by bugs at all. We had mosquito netting on our bed but never used it. Excellent plumbing in the bathroom. The supper I had in the restaurant was the best I had in the entire country. We drank this place out of cold Gallo beer though. Delicious breakfast. Internet only in the restaurant, but...