It should be noted that my partner, J, organized our month-long trip to Peru based largely upon reviews and recommendations found in Trip Advisor and our favorite guide book, Lonely Planet, so it’s a bit painful to report how disappointed we were with the guest house, La Casa de Melgar, in Arequipa, that was relatively highly rated in both places. It’s true that we arrived in Arequipa to unexpected cold and torrential rain, but that made our arrival at this guest house all the more anticipated.
We entered a tiny foyer that had a worn and stained love seat. The woman behind the desk (who, just as a point of information, spoke no English), was wearing a winter jacket. These were our first clues. To reach our room, we walked along several passageways that were open to the sky above, making our luggage quite wet. Our room was enormous, but sparsely furnished with a few pieces that looked more used and worn than antique. The room was icy cold, with the bone-penetrating chill that comes from stone walls and high ceilings.
We had made a reservation for two people and we were expected, but we found only one rather grey towel in the large tiled bathroom. The towel was so damp it could be called wet. There was also one glass. That’s it. Oh, and there was thick dust on the little bedside lamp. The furnishings consisted of two twin beds with slabs of foam for mattresses, perched upon slats. Beneath one bed was an extra frame with slats, leading us to wonder if they expected one of the installed frames to collapse and they had this additional one ready as a replacement! There was no mattress pad; just a thin sheet on the foam, a top sheet, and two wool blankets, which, given the temperature in the room didn’t seem likely to provide adequate warmth. We requested, and ultimately received, additional blankets, towels (even damper than the one we had found in the room) and another glass. We inquired about a heater, but were told there were none.
I should also mention that there was one window in the room, closed with wooden shutters. The French doors, part of the original structure no doubt, each had a large pane of glass, and there were gaps in the wood. The lock was very flimsy and there was a small slide bolt, the kind you sometimes find on the doors of public washroom stalls, as added “security.” One swift kick would have brought both doors crashing down! But the biggest problem with the doors was that the glass was covered by to-the-floor cotton draperies, suspended from a wooden bar just inside the door. If you can visualize this, you’ll realize that in order to leave or re-enter the room, you had to leave the drapes pulled back, exposing the whole interior of the room to any passerby. You could leave the drapes closed only once you were inside the room.
Initially, there was only cold water. In order to get washed before bed, I let the water run for a full 20 minutes by my watch, after which there was a tiny drizzle of lukewarm water. A shower with that water in that frigid bathroom would have been a nightmare – we didn’t try it.
Having slept miserably in the cold (I kept the blankets over my head all night and actually longed for a hat!), we were awakened at 7:00 the next morning by a young man from the guest house and a worker, wandering around and speaking in very loud voices. We dressed and had breakfast that had been described somewhere as “lavish.” That’s hardly the word we would use. Scrambled eggs that were quickly cooling were the feature, as well as a plate of some kind of deli meat. To give credit where it’s due, there was a sort of cold cereal, unfamiliar to us, with excellent yogurt and cane syrup, and also some orange-y juice and bread.
Needless to say, we checked out and the woman at the desk did not seem surprised at all that we were leaving three days early. I guess there are enough enthusiastic guests for La Casa de Melgar, as evinced by the reviews in Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor, that she didn’t need to worry about the premature departure of two frozen, unhappy Canadians.