El Santuario Hotel - The Only Peru Guide

Overview of Hotel

El Santuario Hotel is a 2 star hotel located in the lower part of Aguas Calientes close to the Hatuchay Tower Hotel and the swanky Sumaq Hotel. The hotel is popular with tour groups, but also caters for individual travellers and couples. Accommodations include single, twin, double and triple rooms which are spread across 4 floors. Each floor has a small communal balcony area overlooking the Vilcabamba River. The breakfast area is ample in size and the lower level of the hotel also has a small bar open until 10pm. Guests returning to the hotel after visiting Machu Picchu can be dropped off at the Hatuchay Tower Hotel bus stop, which is next door.

Location

El Santuario Hotel is located on Avenida Hermanos Ayar, the shuttle bus road that leads to Machu Picchu. The hotel faces the Vilcabamba River, which from December – May can be a cause of concern for river noise. From the train station the hotel is 7 – 10 minutes on foot and the main bus stop for Machu Picchu is 4 – 5 minutes away.

Our Thoughts!

El Santuario Hotel could be described as satisfactory. The rooms are satisfactory, the breakfast is satisfactory and the lobby area and bar is nothing special, just satisfactory. However, if you are simply looking for a place to rest your head in between touring Machu Picchu that is affordable and of a reasonable quality, then the Santuario is not a bad choice. Rooms have uninspiring décor and seem to have a classic (and fairly antiquated) Peruvian sense of style. You can expect that a few tiles in the bathrooms are broken, but the showers are hot running and plentiful. It’s worth noting that many of the rooms are internal rooms and actually have windows facing inner corridors. Request a river view room if possible. The wifi signal is painfully slow and almost non-existent in the rooms, but a good signal can be found in the lobby. There is nothing fancy about the breakfast, but it serves the purpose and is better than many other similarly priced places in town.