Marcelo’s house is in a great location, right next to bars and restaurants and the whole area has a great energy to it. I should mention however that the street directly outside the room is very loud. Throughout the day and night there were people talking very loudly and shouting on the streets. Luckily we are deep sleepers but this is definitely something to consider.
In addition, we had a few issues regarding our stay. First, we confirmed with Marcelo that we would be dropping our bags around 11:30am, of which he confirmed. We then arrive at this time to be greeted by the cleaner who wasn’t entirely sure which room we had been allocated and told us that we can’t leave our luggage there and made us return at 3pm. I appreciate that there was a language barrier but the cleaner was quite abrupt and rude. Second, when we got to the room, the duvet was extremely uncomfortable, with bits of feathers sticking out throughout the duvet, making it itchy and scratchy. So we didn’t use the duvet. Luckily there was another lighter bed cover we used. Third, the balcony door was broken and so didn’t lock at all. Whilst the property had locks at the front gate and up the stairs, it would be possible for someone to jump the front gate and get into our room via the balcony. This meant that we couldn’t leave any valuables in the property. Marcelo sent someone round to fix the door (albeit very delayed) but they were not able to and just left the door broken. Fourth, Marcelo was not very quick at responding. When we complained about the broken balcony door on Saturday evening, he was quite defensive and we had to wait until the following afternoon for Marcelo to send someone. Fifth, there is only one doorbell to the entire block of flats. This meant that anytime anyone rang the doorbell, we could hear this in our room, which was quite annoying. Last, whilst the balcony is very nice, the bedroom is on the first floor so we didn’t have any privacy, as people from the streets can look into the room. So we had to close the curtains quite frequently.
In general the room was relatively clean (some plates and glasses were slightly dirty) and comfortable. It was bright and had some very basic cooking equipment and a fridge. Yet, It is significantly smaller than it appears in the photos.