The Hotel Ariosto Room Situation

The room we got in the Hotel Ariosto, www.hotelariosto.com.pe, was small but nice. It was not luxurious by American business traveller standards, but had all the basics -- nice TV, phone in room and bathroom, big closet, dresser and chair. Lima, Peru, has great weather, and it rarely rains, so we could leave the window open -- more on that later.

Susie unfortunately got sick about the third day, and ended up spending hours and hours and hours in the room. So for her, it wore a little thin.

For most of the trip, however, we savvy travellers overlooked one incredibly important detail of the room -- the air conditioner. In fact, at breakfast one morning late in the week, while sitting on the back patio of the hotel, I remarked that all the rooms on the back side of the building had window mounted units, and Susie said wistfully those must be the luxury rooms. I went to the desk to ask that we be moved because of Susie's desire to not turn into gelatin.

But in fact, every room had an air conditioner, though each one was unique and different. Kathleen's was a large flat rectangle on the wall beside her bed. Robin and Amy's was above a false drop ceiling in the entry hall. Ours, when we finally were told by the tolerant but bemused front desk staff that yes, all rooms had AC, was in the top of our closet with a small brown vent being the only sign of it, other than the wall thermostat control that was obscured by the (big color) television.

Needless to say, it was much more enjoyable to be in a cooled room with the windows closed and the traffic noise kept outside than it was to be in basically an open-air patio as the sun beat in and taxi drivers below drummed up business by scaring pedestrians with lunges and honks. More on taxis later.

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