Hi there,
I decided to make a post just to talk about our experience in this hostel because it was so horrible.
For quite some time we decided that we were never going to stay in hostels again for two reasons:
- You can’t trust reviews. Those who go to hostels are mostly “very happy” people, so they always give good reviews, even if everything is disgusting. In addition, they are people who in my opinion do not give much importance to cleanliness. We have verified that a hostel will always have a good score, even if it is filthy.
- They are always dirty. From the previous point, we realize that almost all hostels are disgusting. The minimum I ask for is cleanliness and, in these places, that minimum requirement is not met.
In Costa Rica, in general, the qualities for accommodation are terrible. When in many places for $20/30 per person you find decent options, in Costa Rica you stay in a filthy shack that is falling apart. Imagine that the room we paid at $30 per person per night in Costa Rica was equivalent to the one we paid in Mexico for $5.
In Santa Teresa the only option were hostels and those called “hotels” had the same qualities. Having no other choice, we booked at the Hostel La Posada.
We arrived at the reception and the girl who attended us was disheveled, poorly dressed and with nails full of dirt.
I was reminded of when we were in Koh Rong Samloem, where all over the island the “hotels” were managed by “volunteers”. That is to say, the hotel looks for people who work in exchange for a bed and food to save themselves from having to pay a salary in accordance with the law. So, the so-called hotels worked disastrously since these “volunteers” spent their days drinking beer.
In addition, the figure of “volunteer” as you might imagine, is incorrectly used since a volunteer fulfills a social role and generates improvement with his work. Here what we have is the businessman saving money at the expense of people who do not care whether they cover basic needs.
In fact, we later found out that, in this hostel, the only thing they gave the “volunteers” was a bed in a shared room with a shared bathroom. Not even the food.
We checked in and had to wait at the front desk for the room to be ready. Something curious is that here everyone smoked everywhere when in Costa Rica smoking is prohibited in almost all places (including hotels, beaches, natural parks, etc.). As well as smokers they were dirty, there was not a chair or table in that reception that was not full of cigarette ash. Also, the beds and hammocks were black with filth. The kitchen was also unhygienic and to top it off we later noticed cats licking from the faucet and water filter.
We went up to the room and it seemed clean compared to the common areas of the hotel. The sheets were riddled with holes from cigarette burns and the remotes for the television and air conditioning were broken and dirty. We had to ask for towels and toilet paper because there was none in the room.
From the first moment, everything that could go wrong in the room, failed: lights, water, remotes, etc. When you complained at the reception, they went up to the room, but they couldn’t solve the problems.
The first night we saw one of these “volunteers” who didn’t even know how to make a fried plantain and I told Diego that I hoped that incompetent person wouldn’t oversee making breakfast the next day. Indeed, it was he who was making the poor breakfast in the morning: a burnt pancake, a piece of pineapple, a banana, and a stale coffee.
Since I had breakfast there for the first time, I started to feel sick to my stomach. Since I came with the flu, I didn’t give it much importance because I thought it was all the same.
That first morning, leaving the hostel, I was stung by a giant wasp, one of those with a black body and a red head.
Throughout the stay there were always problems with the water, so it was a challenge to take a shower and brush our teeth. Even when there was water, the pressure was terrible. In addition, there was no daily cleaning, so the garbage cans were more than overflowing.
This hostel had been bought by a Uruguayan and an Argentine. They clearly had no idea what they were doing and miraculously, they still had guests. The Argentine tried to solve things, although unfortunately he was very incompetent, and the Uruguayan was always on drugs.
Here there was no normal person hired and paid to work. Everything was done by the “volunteers” and that’s how that place worked.
From the day we arrived, we were counting the hours left to go to the next destination. We even thought about changing the trip plan to leave early, even if we lost the money.
I was amazed at how incredibly absurd this place was and even more so that it was in operation. Being there was like living a surreal scene.
They had a 4.5 score on Google and TripAdvisor; The few negative reviews were the ones that really told what that hostel was. So, once again, it is clear to me that you must go by the negative reviews.
About 15 days after being in this hostel I still had an upset stomach and the same symptoms that I had there since the first breakfast. I spoke with my doctor and had the pertinent tests done; Turns out I had Giardiasis.
When I put the negative review, the response was that they were a family and that it was a place for socialize; that if we didn’t like to socialize, we should go to a hotel. In this context, socializing means smoking marijuana. They should worry about improving instead of justifying mediocrity. You can be familiar and sociable while remaining clean, hygienic, and decent.
In short, we will always remember the stay in this hostel for its lack of hospitality, its non-existent hygiene and cleanliness, the malfunction of everything and its owners who were completely incompetent.