It is no secret that hostels are wallet friendly and great for budget travelers. When staying at hostels you usually get what you pay for. If your room cost five dollars you know not to expect more than a bed, mattress, and some sheets if your lucky. This is typical of hostels and basicly expected. The Oasis Granada in Nicaragua is far from the cookie cuter hostel found widely in central America. This hostel is easily a five star accomindation as far as hostels go. The Oasis Granada is an open air spansih style building with more than enough places to sit back and read, eat, or just hang out.
There are currently two sets of dorm rooms in the hostel. These rooms are about seven dollars a night and worth every penny. These dorm rooms are pure luxury compared to any other place I have stayed in central America. The bunk beds are made of strong study wood. This is exceptionally nice because most hostels have cheep metal bunk beds that make lots of noise and are a pain to get in and out of the top bunk. The ones at Oasis Granada are the exact opposite. The are comfortable, quite , and the perfect spot to rest at the end of the day.
The rooms house about eight sets of bunks beds. Each bed comes with its own locker and lock. The lockers are big enough to fit a normal style backpack in if you need to. Otherwise there is plenty of room to just lock up your valuables. There are also 2 or 3 fans and each room and the tempeture is very comfortable at night.
The hostel also offer lots of freebies to entice the budget traveler. There is free internet in the middle of the hostel. There is 6 to 8 computers that can be used until 11 at night, after that the hostel security locks them up for the night. The computers are in pretty good condition but if you aren’t up to par on your typing skills you might be in some trouble. The key boards have been used so much that most of the letters have been rubbed right off.
With over 200 DVDs to choose from you are almost garuteed to find a movie that you like. There are a couple different places to watch your movie. If you have a few people who all want to watch the same movie you can use the largest tv that is over by the pool. There are some tables and chairs here to sit in or you can watch from inside the pool. There is also a smaller tv where two people can plug up the provided headphones and watch a movie on a smaller tv in the lounge area. What is great is that his is all free. There is a hostel down the street from this one that charges their customers to rent or watch movies.
Another nice thing the hostel provides is free 15 minute phone calls to the US and Canada. They aren’t even really strict on the time. Just so long as someone isn’t waiting to use the phone that is. I spent about an hour calling diffeent friends and family back home without any problem.
There is a kitchen area in the hostel but as far as I can tell it only serves breakfast. The breakfast meals are all very good and very cheap. Most meals are between two and three dollars. There is also free coffee all day long with milk and sugar. If you want some soda or water they have it for sale up by the front desk. Im not real sure if you are allowed to use the kitchen though. I had a number of experiences with this. Sometimes I would use the kitchen with no problem at. But then there was one time when the housekeeping lady took my food from me and demanded to cook it, saying that I wasn’t allowed to use the kitchen.
The showers were warm, which was a nice luxury I’ve rarely had in Central America. There was a different kind of atmosphere here, though. It wasn’t like most hostels. I didn’t really meet anyone while I was there. Usually I will have met half a dozen people in a matter of minutes at other hostels. I’m not sure if it’s because of the environment or if because maybe only people stay here to pass through, so they don’t worry about making friends. I don’t really know, though, since I didn’t really get to talk to anyone. The only real downfall to this hostel is that, once quiet time starts at 11pm, everything is shut down. There is no TV, Internet, or phone calls. One of my friends also hung out in one of the hammocks until late into the night and found the security guard asleep in the hammock beside him!
