La Chimba

After some careful reviewing, I have to say this hostel was the best hostel I´ve stayed in in my whole South America trip. It´s a big house, decorated with comfortable, funky furniture, art on the walls, a zebra print couch, resident black floppy-haired dog, great music playing up and downstairs, nice big kitchen with plenty of matching utensils and a can opener that worked, as well as a self-lighting, six-place gas stove, solid bunk beds with the comfiest doonas (about as good as the ones in The Adventure Brew in La Paz), hot showers, free internet, a decent book exchange and free breakfast (okay, so they could be a bit more original than bread and jam, but hey). And last but not least, signs everywhere making things easy to figure out (La Casa de la Abuela in Huancayo gets top points for this too).

Also, the owner, originally from the US, was a somewhat quirky but very helpful person, and Pamela the receptionist was great, considering it was her first week there. Location could be better but it was pretty close to places of necessity, and hey, you can´t have everything for US$6 a night.