Hotel Ali Shungu Otavalo

We stayed at this hotel last year and had such a wonderful experience wanted to return this year. We became very friendly with the owner and I offered to bring her things she needed from the US when I returned this year. I reserved 2 rooms a month prior to my visit. When I arrived at Ali Shungu after a 2 hour car ride, she told me she had my rooms, but one guest decided to stay an extra day so could only offer me 1 room and I should go down the block to another hotel for the other room. .Call me crazy, but shouldn't she have told her guest the room was reserved and had them seek accomodations elsewhere for that addiontial day? She just looked me in the eye and said "what could I do"....she showed a lack of professionalism and her greed for money, but gladly accepted the things I brought her from the US....she lost me as a guest forever.

Hotel Ali Shungu is well located in Otavalo, has spacious rooms, a wonderful garden with lots of birds and plants, friendly staff and one of the best restaurants I've visited in Ecuador.

Stayed here with mother and girlfriend for one night only. Hot water in the shower was slow, but after a while, it came.

I stayed here for two nights -- the main purpose of my trip was to see the mountains and visit the "poncho market," a famous street market (mainly on Saturdays) for various indigenous Ecuadorian handicrafts. The hotel is located about six blocks from the center of town and the walk seems a little dicey at night. The room was clean, but absolutely freezing at night. (I wore a hat while I slept.) The hotel does not have any heat even though it gets really cold in the mountains at night (it's fine during the day). To be fair, I doubt any of the other hotels in Otavalo are heated either. The best thing about the hotel is the restaurant. Compared to most Ecuadorian food, it ranged from good to excellent and is reasonably priced for the quality. There are lots of vegetarian choices, a rarity in Ecuador. I booked the hotel in part on reliance on a guidebook's tip that the owners spoke English (they are expatriate Americans), but the owners were almost invisible during my stay and the rest of the staff speaks almost no English. I do recommend this region of the country to visit, and this is probably one of the better hotels in the area.

I have visited Otavalo each summer with friends (or relatives) for the past five summers (and am headed back again this July). The first year we split our time between Ali Shungu and one of the neighboring Hacienda's. We enjoyed both.....but each yr since... we simply book our entire 4 or 5 day stay at Ali Shungu. Good company, staff, food, acccomodations, and the list could go on and on. Great location too! A 5 minute walk to the big markets. Great place to read a book by the fire, early in the morning or at dusk, or to pick up traveling tips to places near or far. Simply put..... Ali Shungu is best in class (and then some) I'm betting readers of this note will not be disappointed (unless you fail to take my advice and decide to split your time between two different Otavalo locations). You will learn the hard way.... that Ali Shungu is an awfully tough act to follow! Enjoy!

We stayed at the Ali Shungu Hotel for two nights the end of April 2006. Our only disappointment is that we couldn't stay longer.

We had decided to book after reading reviews in a number of guidebooks (Frommers, Lonely Planet) and contacted Margaret (one of the owners) directly by e-mail. Margaret was a real gem not only assisting with transportation to Otavalo from Quito but giving us numerous tips of other great hotels that we should consider for the rest of our trip (one of which La Cartuja was a great hotel in Quito).

The Hotel itself is a five minute walk to the main market in Poncho Plaza and a ten minute walk to the early morning animal market held on a Saturday. So the location is ideal.

The rooms are very spacious and clean and decorated with local art (wall hangings, tapestries, ceramics) that you can buy in the hotel gift shop or from the market, which we thought was great as we could decide what to buy prior to market day. The bathrooms are quite large and the showers seemed to have endless hot water and you even got a regular bar of soap instead of the small ones you normally get in hotels. One thing to say about the rooms, they can get a little chilly at night. There are plenty of blankets on the beds that keep you warm, but if like me you feel the cold and have to make a trip to the bathroom in the night, then take a sweater to slip on.

The rooms are set on two floors in an "L" shaped building overlooking a patio and garden. Its great to sit on the patio or in the garden and watch the hummingbirds inbetween trips to the market.

The restaurant is large and again decorated with local art. The food is very tasty and freshly prepared. The staff are local and are very friendly and will assist with your every needs. The prices in the restaurant are not cheap (for Ecuador) , but given the quality of food and service definitely worth it (large breakfast $5+tax, large fresh fruit juice $1.50+tax, appetiser large enough for lunch (i.e. tuna salad in avacado with garlic bread) $3.75+tax and main courses are approx. $7.50+tax). On Friday and Saturday nights there is supposed to be live local music however there was none while we stayed although there was only approx ten people staying that weekend.

We rarely visit a place twice as there are so many places to see, but we are already considering visiting Otavalo on another trip to South America and staying at Ali Shungu.

Traveled to Otavalo with our children, adopted from Ecuador as teenagers. We all loved the food, music, the rooms were spacious. The staf very friendly. The highlight of our 3 week trip to Ecuador!

Hotel Ali Shungu was the best place we stayed in all of Ecuador. The rooms were immaculate and spacious. Margaret and Frank, the owners, were so nice and accomodating. The restaurant had the healthiest and tastiest food we had on our trip. You can leave a tip in the kitchen and also see how spotless it is. On Friday nights there are local Otavalan musicians who played beautifully. The grounds are landscaped and the birds we saw were numerous. There was secure parking for our rental car. The owners provided maps and suggestions of what to see in and around Otavalo. What a great place!!!

We have just returned from a two week incredible journey to Ecuador including a week in the Galapagos, a couple of days in Quito and a couple of days in Otavalo. We found "Hotel" Ali Shungu mentioned in our faithful travel book and in another travel magazine we subscribe to and we were very pleased with our choice overall.

What I want to mention from the other reviews that I have read is that there are two properties with the name Ali Shungu. The other reviews, I do believe are for the Hotel Ali Shungu which is in the town of Otavalo and not Rancho Ali Shungu which is located a few km. out of town. Both belong to the same owners.

The hotel Ali Shungu was lovely, service was friendly, the comfortable rooms were decorated with interesting local art and plants and the showers were to die for (hot showers with water pressure and toilets that were americanized).

I was jealous of their beautiful gardens and thoroughly enjoyed having a cerveza or two while watching the hummingbirds and resident vermillion flycatcher flicker from tree to tree.

The downside, I would agree with one of the reviews is that the traffic noise can be bothersome at night, but after a full day of exploring the surroundings and visiting the markets, sleep still came easy.

There are probably cheaper hotels and cheaper food within Otavalo, but we felt we got our money's worth.

The Ali Shungu has a nice garden, a good restaurant and clean, basic guest rooms with excellent showers. It also has a serious noise problem. There is a busy road that runs behind the hotel and with constant traffic noise from 6am until midnight. If you live in Manhattan you may be used to this type of noise. It bothered me. I checked out some other hotels and would have preferred to stay at the Hotel Otavalo.