A few words about the hostels...

Sometimes the worst hostels are not the worst nights....

We have had some great hostels this trip, the one in El Calafate was fantastic, (friendly, clean, helpful,). The one in Puerto Madryn was also pretty good, a little noisy and hot, no fan in the room, but overall very clean and pretty good.

The one we stayed at the first couple of nights on Buenos Aires seemed ok, but then..... When we came back north from El Calafate, we were arriving into BA around 11 ish at night, but we planned to take the 1 am slow ferry to Montivevideo which would arrive around 7 am, so we did not bother booking a hostel. When we got to the Bukebus (ferry) the ferry was not running, so now we needed a place to stay and it was late. So we went back to the hostel we had stayed at, they had a couple of beds left but they were in a coed dorm (which should have twigged us right away) but we were tired and it was now after midnight. This room was ridiculously hot, all the windows were open, and the street noise was loud. It had 8 beds, and there were bodies and stuff everywhere. I went to the desk and asked for bed numbers, and was given sheets and told to take any bed without sheets as they owuld be empty. We grabbed two beds and tried to make the best of things. Then about an hour after finally getting to sleep I was woken up, as apparently I was in someone elses bed. So I grabbed my sheets and stuff and headed to another bed, and was not to happy about it but it was easier than arguing at thst point.

I though DOmi was asleep and hopefully having a better night than me, but no such luck for her either. The guy in the bed above her was tossing and turning so much her bunk bed was actually moving around, and he kept dangling his feet over the edge, so she had strange feet in her face. She heard the whole ruckus when I got kicked out of the bed and was having trouble with the street noise

The street noise was so loud, I had trouble sleeping, (and I can sleep through everything that gioves you an idea how loud it really was) By 7 am I had had enough, I got up, showered and went to surf the internet, I just wanted out of there. Domi bravely tried to sleep for a bit longer, but as soon as she was up we headed out pretty quickly. I think I may have been better sleeping in the Bukebus terminal

This is probablly one of the worst nights I have evere had in a hostel anywhere in the world !

The hostel in Montevideo was not too bad. The staff tried hard and were very friendly, it could have been a little cleaner, but the atmosphere was good, it was quiet and they had a great BBQ one of the nights we were there (probably the best meal I had in Uruguay). We met some pretty interesting people that as well. One women was biking around the world, she had been travelling for about 2 years at this point. The rooms had no screens on the windows though and it was really hot and humid, so we got a lot of mosquito bites.

The place in Punta Del Este was very strange, it was not a good hotsel, but beds were hard to come by there, so we did not have too may options. A surfer guy basically is renting out rooms.... it was very bizarre. He basically went surfing during the day, and left the house unlocked at the back for anyone checking in and collected his money at night cause he would be gone to surf the waves in the morning. He was not helpful aboout the beaches or town
We really did not want to spend much time there, so we went for dinner had a bunch of wine before going back around midnight. As again the doors were wide open and no screens, both of us slept fully clothed hoping to avoid more bug bites. We left pretty early the next morning taking all our stuff with us, even though the Bukebus back to BA was not til 5 pm, we just kept our packs with us on the beach all day
Although this was not the worst night, it is probably one of the lousier hostels I have stayed in....


We are now back in BA in a different hostel, and so far it looks pretty good, quiet room, clean bathroom, and very helpful front desk staff so it is off to a good start...