Not really a hostal, but not exactly a hotel.

Location is excellent, in the very safe and mellow neighborhood of San Fernando. Nearby:

Dry cleaners (3 or 4 within 0.5-2 blocks)

Grocery store (2 blocks, including small pharmacy)

ATMS (2 are 2 blocks away, 2 others 3 blocks away, and the one at the grocery store is the only ATM we found that would give 400k instead of a limit of 300k per transaction)

Fruit juice / smoothie spot (3 blocks)


Rigoberto (Rigo) is the proprietor, and he is super nice, and fluent in english, too (lived in US many years). His internet is slow, so better to hit ChipeChape, or the great i-cafe in the lobby of the Rayda apartments, across from the Hotel Intercontinental Casino.

The staff (girls that do the rooms) are super nice! They will do your laundry for you, although their prices are as much, if not a little more, than the neighborhood cleaners. The phone charges are slightly more than a telecabine: 300/minute for local and 1,600 per minute for cells).

It's a little quirky that you have to have Rigo or one of the girls unlock the gate for you with each arrival or departure, but then the place sure is secure.

The airconditioner units are strong! But the fuse blew many times, like almost once per day, during our visit. The typically will fix it immediately, but once Rigo was away and it took many hours (TV was thus down also).

Water pressure was super!

Typical sampling of TV channel options.

You get free access to the Club San Fernando, a nice high end (for Cali) country club with huge pool (fun 5m high dive), restaurant, message, tennis courts, bowling, poop hall, steam/sauna/hotub. This is a great option for day dates!

Calle 3, 27-87
556-4818
www.calihotel.com

Oops, here's info about the rates:

I paid us$27 for a single, A/C included (an extra charge). My arrangement was that for only the nights I brought home a girl for the evening (not a day visitor) I was charged for a double, which was like us$5 more.

They require payment in cash! No credit cards. So use your ATM to grab a lot of pesos, as their exchange rate sucked - only 2700 (vs. the interbank rate of around 2860). Note, the cambia houses/desks and/or banks likely only gave 2700 or less, maybe only 2500... but that doesn't mean 2700 doesn't suck (sorry Rigo).

OK, here are two pix and a video of the two floor apartment. Floor one is a living room with open kitchen area, foor two is the bedroom with two double beds and bathroom. A/C units on both floors.

Admin: Please see photos above

The video starts at the front door and proceeds upstairs:

Hostal San Fernando Video

Hostal San Fernando Video (3897.6 k)

Thanks for the info! I love the fact that you get access to the country club pool and tennis courts! Is this hotel near good mongering places?

Is it "near"?

Well, it's not walking distance, but then none really are except the Intercontinental is 2 blks from a bar full of skanks (name not remembered) and some dive hotels may be less than 5 blks to Flores Frescas or casas.

Every reasonable place to stay requires a taxi to places. Hostal San Fernando is a 5 minute ride at about 3,000 pesos (a little less actually... about us$1) to the Intercontinental, and thus H.S.F. is less than us$2 to all casas in the central part of town, and Av. Sexta...

About 4-5k pesos to Chipechape, maybe 6k to Unicentro. There are numerous casas in the south central and south that I didn't explore, all within 3-4k pesos by taxi.

Note the drop on the taxi is what... over 1k (1,500?)... so these distances are even closer than the cost indicates.