Inexpensive and comfortable lodgings in South America

I found the following inexpensive but comfortable lodgings during a February-March ’07 visit to South America (see April’08, pg. 49). Each had private bath, cable TV and, where needed, A/C. The price given for each is the approximate dollar amount for my single room.

• Hotel Rosario del Lago (Padres at Costañera, Copacabana, BOLIVIA; phone 591 2 862 2141, fax 862 2140, www.hotelrosario.com/lago).

Copacabana is the center of activity on Bolivia’s side of the lake and the departure point for the Island of the Sun. The hotel’s spacious rooms overlook the lake and the beach from which the boats depart. $34 included an excellent breakfast buffet. The dining room also served excellent dinners, which probably ran about $15.

A tourist bus runs daily between the hotel and its sister hotel in La Paz, but I’m confident my ride, where I was crammed into the rear seat of the local bus/minivan, was much more interesting.

• The same people own Hotel Rosario in La Paz (Ave. Illampu 704, Casilla Centro 12446, La Paz, BOLIVIA; phone 591 2 245 1658, fax 245-1991, www.hotelrosario.com).

It’s right in the middle of the hectic, seemingly chaotic and even initially intimidating but fascinating street activity in the historic section of La Paz — very different from, and much more interesting, to me, than the city’s modern center.

$33 included a full buffet breakfast in the hotel’s fine dining room.

• Hotel Foresta (Victoria Subercaseaux 353, Centro, Barrio Lastarria, Santiago, CHILE; phone 56 2 639 6261, fax 632 2996 or e-mail hforesta@terra.cl) — beside the beautiful Cerro Santa Lucía park, which the hotel’s top-floor dining room overlooks, and at the beginning of the pedestrian-only streets to the city’s central lush Plaza de Armas a couple of blocks away, surrounded by gorgeous colonial buildings and close to excellent museums.

$33. Full breakfast, $2.50 extra.

• Gran Hotel Hispano (Ave. de Mayo 81, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA; phone 54 11 4345 2020, fax 4331-5266, www.hhispano.com.ar).

The name is an exaggeration, despite the glass-roofed atrium, but it is conveniently located on one of the city’s major streets, near pedestrian-only shopping streets and the central Plaza de Mayo, where the cathedral and the Presidential Palace are located.

$38 cash or $42 with a credit card. Continental breakfast, in-room fridge and free purified drinking water included.

• Hotel Oxford (Paraugy 1286, Montevideo, URUGUAY; phone 598 2 902 0046, fax 902 3792, www.hoteloxford.com.uy) — conveniently located off the city’s main street, near all attractions.

$35 included a full buffet breakfast, bounteous afternoon tea and free use of the Internet computer.

If it doesn’t merit the four stars it claims, it’s surely a solid three.

• In addition to the above, lower-priced hotels, I stayed in Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL, at the APA Hotel (Rua República do Peru 305, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro; phone 55 21 2548 8112, fax 2256 3628, www.apahotel.com.br).

At $79, it was much above the rate given for it on the Internet, which didn’t include tax, but it was the least expensive hotel I could find in Copacabana, which is where I wanted to stay.

The rate did include a full buffet breakfast and an in-room mini-bar/fridge (the contents of which were exorbitantly priced, but use of the fridge was free).

My starkly modern but entirely comfortable room had a balcony.

KENNETH G. CROSBY

Livingston, TX