How to book a Cuenca hotel like a local and pay less

Dear Charlie,

My significant other and I are coming to Cuenca for two months and would relish any advice on finding a reasonable place to stay with easy access to el centro. We only have semi-worthless Canadian dollars. Yours sincerely, Pierre Trudeau.

Pierre, mon ami, allow me to answer your question with a small bedtime story.

You book an Airbnb months in advance. The photos are lovely. There is a wooden table, a potted plant, and a low-flushing toilet commode with a wobbly seat, all of which are collectively described as “rustic charm.”

After traveling for 24 hours from Montreal with a connection in Miami, you stumble into Guayaquil at an hour when the airport shops are shutting and the bathrooms are closed for cleaning. Four hours later you and your intrepid explorer partner have traversed the Andes in the dusk and descended into Cuenca just in time to see the streetlamps illuminating the famous cobbled streets.

The taxi stops and you give the driver the US $5 bill that you have been saving for this moment. You wait on the sidewalk. Your landlord arrives half an hour later and lets you in. He bids you a good night and leaves, then you strip off and turn on the shower and discover the hot water is not part of today’s package.

At this very moment the school across the street begins its evening indoor soccer tournament. By 11 pm, the referee, the metal roof, and the fanatical parents on the bleachers are all participating at full volume and a wonky floodlight is flashing on and off directly into your bedroom. Deafening music plays every time a goal is scored, which is frequently.

The next day, at lunchtime, your landlord thoughtfully returns and shows you how to climb onto the roof and manually turn on the hot water with a knob and a valve hidden underneath the gas calefactor whose pilot light has gone out. He also brings a new D-size battery.

You now have hot water on demand.

You have also learned to use the phrase “learning experience” correctly in a sentence.

Was this the best possible accommodation plan for your first night in Cuenca? Probably not, your partner tells you as she scribbles some notes for a song she has been inspired to write called Cold Showers in Cuenca.

Now to geography. People have probably told you that El Vergel is a great area to stay, being technically within walking distance of el centro. This is true in the same sense that Machu Picchu is technically within walking distance of the nearest river. To reach Calle Larga from El Vergel you climb roughly 120 stone steps from the river near Parque de la Madre. You do this at 8,000 feet of altitude where the oxygen is only 85% of what you are used to. Some couples enjoy this and find it an invigorating bonding experience, especially if they are wielding YouTube cameras and gimbals, but others start to question their choice of romantic partners at the halfway point.

If your goal is easy access to el centro, then the clever move is to stay in el centro. Did you not think of this, Pierre?

Here is the part the online booking websites do not emphasize. Cuenca has a large supply of small, clean, comfortable hotels and suites right in the historic center. Many of them cost less per week than a so-called bargain Airbnb once cleaning fees, IVA, and service charges have finished nibbling away at your credit card.

Names change and owners change, but properties like La Orchidea, Hotel Vieja Mansion, Hotel IQON, and many similar places offer something Airbnbs often do not, like front desks and hot water that just works. A real person to complain to at 10 pm.

But here is an important rule. Do not accept the first price you see online on one of those popular online booking websites. Call the hotel directly, or better still, write to them by WhatsApp message or email. Ask politely for a weekly or monthly rate. Hotels here understand long stays. They also understand negotiation, especially when they have empty rooms.

If you do not speak Spanish, write the email in English and let your phone translate it. No one will be offended. Everyone will appreciate the effort.

A sample message that works fine: “Dear X, we have heard your hotel is encantador and we are planning to come to Cuenca on such and such a date and stay for three weeks. Could you kindly offer us your best long stay rate and let us know if desayuno is incluido?”

That single last sentence has saved more people more money than any loyalty card ever printed.

On a recent trip to a totally non-touristy corner of north Florida I wandered into a cafe in a strip mall used by locals and paid about twenty dollars (including mandatory tip) for a very basic breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, little plastic jam things, fake butter, and poor quality coffee, fake milk, no fresh fruit, no fancy touches, and not especially good either. This very basic breakfast for 2 people would have cost $1200 for 1 month.

That is when the value of a Cuenca hotel breakfast for two incluido in the room rate really snaps into focus.

Here a proper desayuno for 2 people with fresh juice, fruit, eggs, bread and coffee might easily be worth ten to fifteen dollars a day at normal local gringo prices for two people without anyone making a fuss about it. Over a month that is three hundred to four hundred and fifty dollars that simply does not leave your pocket.

You can of course cook breakfast at home in Cuenca and many people do exactly that, but even the modest version adds up once you count eggs, fruit, bread, coffee, gas, dish soap and your own time standing at the stove half awake. A simple two-person home breakfast might still run four to six dollars a day if you are doing it properly with fresh fruit and real coffee. Over a month that becomes one hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty dollars plus the daily chore itself.

When a hotel puts a good desayuno on the table every morning for two people and you can just eat it, wipe your mouth, and walk away, the savings are not just financial. They are practical, domestic, and psychological as well.

My own advice is fairly simple. Book three or four nights in el centro with breakfast included to begin with. Walk around the neighborhood. Listen to the nocturnal noises. Check the WiFi. Look at the sun. Plump the pillows, and sniff the towels. Count the steps. Note the presence or absence of handrails. Now decide where to stay for the rest of your three weeks.

Offering to pay in cash may also lower your price. Debit and credit cards extract money from local businesses, so they will often share part of the savings of a cash transaction with you. Booking through a famous Web site like Bookworms.com or Xspeedier.net rather than in person will also cost the hotel a whopping extra 15% in commissions, so you should probably ask for an in-person price of at least 10% below any price quoted on Bedbugs.com or similar Websites.

And one last reminder from your friend across the road from the indoor soccer court. Airbnb listings never mention schools, dog kennels, churches, cannons, fireworks, passing buses, marching bands, car alarms, or the scheduled dawn barkathon for local dogs.

Hotels have already solved most of those problems.

Pierre, you are coming to Cuenca for two months. You are not here to test your climbing skills at midnight in wet sandals while learning how Ecuadorian hot-water plumbing works.

Start in comfort, explore from strength and upgrade later. You are not as young as you once were, and your knees will thank you. And so will your fiancée.

On ne voyage pas pour souffrir. Bonne chance!