Scott's Place

When I arrived in Santiago with Jack, a traveler I had met in Pucon, we had both just been robbed by thieves getting into our ground floor room through an unlocked (well it had no lock actually) window. We had been recommended Scott's Place by a Dutch bloke, who said the owner was: "knowledgeable."

We found it, eventually - there was no sign, and were ushered into a large, deserted and scruffy house, the aforementioned Place, by the man himself. Scott is an American guy in his 50s who looked somewhat worse for wear (it was early in the morning though in fairness and we probably didn´t look fabulous either).

He ushered us into an untidy ground floor room which, surprise, surprise - had a window without a lock on it. We told him what had happened in Pucon and he offered to nail the window shut. We agreed but then he said that he wasn't going to put anyone else in the room either as we were so paranoid about being robbed - so he would have to charge us more.

I said we had no problem with other people being in the room; if he could nail the window shut we were happy to share with other backpackers (as well as the old bike stood over in the corner).

Upon hearing this, Scott became a little agitated, insisting that it was more likely that we would be robbed by other backpackers than by someone breaking in. A fair point - but not borne out by our own experience 2 nights previous - once bitten, twice shy etc. He then said that, if we were to stay, it would be under his conditions as he had the experience of 10,000 backpackers staying at his Place over the years and knew best. A few minutes later we walked out.

Oh yeah - Jack told me afterwards that a review on the internet from 2006 said that the sink in the bathroom was broken. It still is. Enough said.