Selvista Guesthouses — Hotel in Altagracia (Municipio)

If you want to experience the jungle but aren’t ready to barrel out on your own like a doomed British explorer or Herzogian hero, this place could be a good fit for you. Like, I really want to see monkeys (which they don’t have in the US) - but I also don’t want anything to lay eggs under my skin. ||I like camping - and I know you usually have to get a couple miles off the beaten track to find the magical spots. The flip side is that you can’t just call 911 if you get hurt/sick or rush out to 7-11 for that bug spray you forgot. ||This place hits that glamping intersection pretty well. There’s wifi and the toilets are swankier than the one I have at home - but if you are there during the rainy season (hot and sticky and 99% humidity) like I was - you will still get the full force of these massive rainstorms pounding on the roof and (if you got a room with a view) the sight of lightning zapping the top of the volcano. Bring earplugs and be glad you’ve got a roof that’s way better than the rusty corrugated ones that many impoverished Nicaraguans have to huddle under. (The earplugs also blocked out afternoon evangelical hootenannies down the hill.) ||Speaking of locals - I really appreciated the warm hospitality of Auden and Eli - two young men who help run the joint. Then again, I speak some Spanish. Neymar is fluent and also grew up on the island - and literally went the extra mile(s) by returning my ATV on the fly after I barfed in the bushes at breakfast. ($20 cancellation fee). Still not sure what was the culprit - and no one else got sick so not gonna blame Selvista. I just spent a couple days laying in bed under the fan like Martin Sheen at the beginning of Apocalypse Now. Cold showers felt great. ||The manager is the white woman named Megan - and maybe I picked up on what one of the reviewers deemed her “expat fatigue.” It’s worth noting that she’s the only one who’s not a local. She’s an English woman who has decided to live with Neymar and his two kids on a jungle island in the middle of Central America’s poorest country. I’m just not sure if she’s decided on a career as a hotel manager, though. ||She told me she only checked her email twice a day and seemed to hand off a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities to Eli and Auden - who were frankly mas amable pero no pueden hablar ingles muy bien. I even found myself having to greet some guests and help them to their accommodations. Is being that hands-off the mark of someone who truly loves hosting tourists? ||Then again, perhaps it’s part of a genuinely laudable plan to transfer more of the management and control over to native Nicaraguans. Like the two other places I stayed at in Nica (Costa Dulce and Casa de Los Sartos), this one is owned by a foreigner because, fine, that’s who has the money. ||One way foreign owners can avoid the traps of neoimperialism or paternalism is by really putting in the time/effort/money to help the Nicaraguans find out what they want to do, so that perhaps they can be the ones running the place or starting up their own ventures. If the employees decide that they want to learn English - this might entail actually paying for their lessons with professional teachers rather than, say, putting out a call for a volunteer. You get what you pay for, right? (Why, yes, I am a member of the NEA.) ||As Americans (the owner is a fellow New Jerseyan who lives in Scandinavia), we’ve got a lot of bad karma to try and make up for in Nicaragua, and it sounds like their Bona Fide project was focused on community-led education before COVID. ||Finally, this place is remote with a bummmmpy driveway so you’ll definitely need to rent proper transportation. I tried an ATV (or quad) for the first time in my life (I’m 47) and it’s a good way to get around on your own, meet more Nicaraguans, and maybe even happen upon a local baseball game like I did. Just watch the curves. Or go the peaceful/sporty route and rent a bicycle. ||Oh and they have coconut water, y’all! Turns out it comes out of these hard balls that...

Stayed 18th to the 20th of November 2019 The owner I believe his name is Chris has been long absent from what we can tell, which has most likely lead to these strange issues with encountered ourselves and the other group we traveled with.

The place itself was amazing but the upkeep was out of date. Our bug net over the bed has holes in the top. The pillows were super old, lumpy, and molded under the casing. The bed lacked blankets, one night it go so cold we used the mattress on the chest in our room as an additional blanket. No staff can be found in the place except in the morning or when people are expected to arrive you are suppose to text them via Whatsapp for service. (Sometimes they responded fast other times it was hours to a half day between responses)

Cleaning our room never happened, you have to request it but you would expect with a waste bin in a bathroom to save the pipes they would just want to change that daily.

Now for the real issues that drop this place rank from 4 to a 2. There is some kind of strange war going on with the hotel and companies around it. Our friends had a bad experience with the hotel recommended person so they tried to get service from another company and the hotel staff refused to offer any other options. So we struck out and found other options on our own. The staff got wind of this after it was booked and rebooked our friends with their services. Our friends had felt like they literally had been kidnapped when they were picked up for their excursion and it was the company that they didn't want to use. it was explained to them that they have to use the hotel services or they get no services because this is their island and they run it.

Next we had booked ourselves a ride back to the ferry terminal in advance of our arrival. Well we again didn't use the hotels recommend service. So when our driver came to pick us two things happened. One. they tried to prevent our driver from coming up the mountain and wanted to make us and our luggage walk down to the bottom. (I was ILL at this time) and two when our driver was like hell no and just came up they tried to load us into another 4x4 jeep they had. (I think this might have been an actual mistake rather then intended but not certain) Overall, this weird turf war going on shouldn't affect the clients.

The owner needs to clean up this weird service nightmare his staff has put together during...

Selvista Guesthouse's claim is "barefoot luxury". It turned out to be all barefoot, no luxury and WAY overpriced for that. Would not stay there again! Stay away!

Our room was definitely not equipped to be a guest room (shower and toilet were broken, only one small lamp not strong enough to light the whole room, let alone reading lights), someone's private stuff was all over (canoe paddle, fishing rods, necklaces, rotting books). There was an open utility closet attached with stacks of toilet paper etc. and the room had a moldy ceiling. The attached shower and toilet were not working so we had to use a compost toilet and an a rusty outdoor shower with no curtain and only cold water about 30 meters up a steep rocky unlit path from the room.

Mice and birds were coming into the room and went into our luggage at night because the door had huge open areas and no screen at all.

There were dogs running around all over the property and even entering our room.

And that all for 90$ per night - very overpriced for what you are getting there. We had many rooms in Nicaragua for a fraction of that price with much more comfort - even in equally remote areas.

I just came across another critical review about Selvista being illegally-run by expats, who are not paying taxes and exploiting the Nicaraguan staff. I am quite inclined to believe that is true since

they did not ask us for our passports for registration as was the case at all other places we stayed at

they only accept cash to pay for the rooms claiming that credit cards do not work on the island which is a lie since many other hotels on Ometepe DO accept them. They do not usually give receipts, we only got a very improvised one since we insisted on it.

the expat manager was indeed very unfriendly and not helpful at all.

Overall, I regret to have spent...