Hostel Pachamama — Hotel in San Juan del Sur (Municipio)

I stayed three nights at Pachamama’s during a weekend. If you are looking for a party/social hostel, this is the place.

All of the volunteers were very welcoming. I also felt that most travellers who were staying at the hostel were generally friendly and easy to engage. The common area is more spacious than I imagined. It has a decent size pool and a sizeable bar. The staffs are also extremely helpful and friendly.

The biggest upside is that the notorious Sunday Funday party starts here. You can simply roll out of your bed start the party as early as 11AM. The hostel also facilitate a number of event nights such as a beer pong night, movie night and a trivia night.

The location is also extremely convenient. Sitting at the heart of the SJDS centre, you can pretty much access any amenities within a 5 minute walk from the hostel. The beach is also only a minute away from here!

I will say, however, the facility itself can be problematic for some. The four person dorm was extremely humid inside and it was constantly musty. The shower facilities were also inconvenient as they lacked hooks for hanging towels and clothes. The 10 person dorm (jungle room) is surprisingly more spacious and had better air circulation. I ended up switching my room from the four person room to a 10 person dorm.

The hostel is also located just outside of one of the major club/bars in the town. If you intend to stay here on the weekend, you will need to embrace the loud music playing...

Let’s start with the good things. Nice location, good rooms, great to party. Overall it was a good place to stay for Sunday Funday party. The not so good things are the following: Very unfriendly staff. By staff I mean the staff that actually works there not the international staff that’s only there temporarily. The manager and receptionist which I think was the operations manager as well, where very unfriendly and a problem. One day, a friend slipped in the bathroom and the shower door, which was made of glass, broke. The manager said he wanted over 500 dollars for the door. We kindly asked him to show us the actual price, he didn’t want to show it to us. We then found out by ourself that the door actually costs less than 80 dollars. We said to the manager look, we will pay the actual price, not your ridiculous 500 dollars. They got kind of aggressive and desperate because they knew we where right, but somehow where to proud to admit it. They said that unless we pay them, they wouldn’t give us our passports back (there we got angry and worried). At the end we paid and got our passports, however they where really unfriendly. Oh and one night, the receptionist, some guy there let his friends go up to our room to check it out, good thing we had our stuff locked up. I saw them come down from our room. Overall, nice to stay two nights and to party . But honestly it’s the most unfriendly staff ever.

Think twice when...

The first place I stayed in San Juan Del Sur. Every other place was booked solid because of high season. New and clean place for the most part. Liked that we all got our individual dorm room keys and there was even an ensuite bathroom to share. The dorm room itself was rather small and cramped. Realized a little late also that this was the PARTY HOSTEL! I was on the wrong schedule here as I like to sleep at night and do other things during the day, as opposed to others in my dorm room. As a result I didn't get much sleep. It was also a bit hard to to get service as the management seemed more keen on partying once the sun went down. I left at the first opportunity however I can't really blame the hostel too much as I should have known that I was in the wrong sort of hostel. However if you like to party hard with late teens and early twenties kids, then this would be right...