Hostal Iskanwaya

Great place A great place in a perfect location. And hot water in the shower! Right at the beginning of Mercado Rodríguez.

Where to even begin with Hostel Iskanwaya and Rodrigo’s hospitality. Admittedly this review is a few weeks delayed, but we have been singing Rodrigo’s praises to all our friends and family back home due to him going above and beyond in a fairly stressful situation - this may be long, but there aren’t enough words to highlight how grateful we were. Besides the later misfortune we ended up having whilst in La Paz, first and foremost, the reviews questioning whether Rodrigo sleeps are accurate because straight away on the first day when our bus got in at 5am, he was there to greet us and fortunately was able to let us into our room right away, meaning we could nap straight away after our overnight bus. Onto the more ‘extreme’ circumstances where Rodrigo came into his own - My partner experienced a combination of a potential head injury (from cycling Death Road) and severe altitude sickness, so much so he required medical treatment at a hospital. Obviously as tourists, we weren’t too sure where was the most suitable hospital for us and to add another obstacle, our stay coincided with miners’ strikes involving road blockades everywhere and dynamite being let off, making getting from A to B pretty difficult, not ideal with a medical situation at hand, but I can’t stress enough how much of an angel Rodrigo was at this time. Firstly he recommended a clinic (which was great), but most importantly he enlisted the help of his friends in the local area who were drivers to help us get to and from the hospital, as taxis were proving difficult to get hold of due to the blockades - this included having his friend waiting for us outside the hospital at 10:30pm just in case we didn’t have wifi to contact him when we were ready to arrange pick up, avoiding possibly being stranded at the clinic. Given the situation, we had to keep delaying our bus to Cusco as my partner could barely get out of bed, and we were so so so thankful that not only were we able to extend our stay so easily but we were able to stay in the same room the whole time (we were very fortunate that the guests after us had cancelled their visit at short notice). I don’t know if we were just lucky but our room was super spacious, with lots of light, a really comfortable bed and great bathroom - perfect for my partner who was forced to set up camp here for 4/5 days. Again, Rodrigo was understanding that my partner couldn’t make it downstairs for breakfast and was very accommodating in letting me take him up some food from the spread. He also had some great recommendations for chicken soup from a local cafe to help him feel better. Despite there often being guests requiring his attention for other queries, no matter how many times I popped my head into the reception (he was probably sick of hearing about room 20!), no question or request was too big, and really provided a thorough response to everything. I also don’t think our case was one off, as we heard a conversation between him and our neig