Hostal Austria

The kitchen is available, and the Wi-Fi worked well even in the rooms farthest away. It's near the city centre in La Paz and has good services for most tourists. Private bathrooms would make it just great.

The outside looks shabby, though the interior and rooms are okay. My single-person room was clean but very small. Showers were hot, but took some fiddling to get the temperature right. Prices are very cheap, and it's very close to plaza san francisco.

It's a really central spot for seeing la paz, and might be fine if you're on a tight budget, want to cook for yourself, and aren't bothered by noise. But the hygiene situation is poor: there's no soap anywhere, and all the bathrooms are shared. Noise was the main problem for me. I've never slept so badly because of noise at a hostel, and I sleep very deeply. They said both rooms were sound-isolated, but you can hear everything through the paper-thin walls. The first room they offered smelled terrible; the second smelled fine, but was no quieter. The door is locked from 9pm, and sometimes people ring for minutes before the receptionist opens it, waking half the hostel. Early arrivals made noise at 6am on both mornings I slept there. On the second morning I managed to fall asleep again, then the cleaning lady started cleaning the room next door at 7.30am. She seemed to think that was totally normal. Maybe some rooms aren't as bad, so find out for yourself.

A pretty cheap shared room for three, 45Bs, with a kitchen guests can use. The hostel is in La Paz's historical center, and the bathroom and toilets were clean with hot water. I made a friend here :)