At $10, Hotel Central was relatively expensive for Ecuador. However, it was for a private room with a bath, including towels, toilet paper, and a TV (although there were only Spanish channels, so the only things I understood were badly dubbed American movies and the nonstop football channel). The staff was kind and accommodating and put up with my horrible Spanish. They also allowed me to store my luggage for 2 days while I went off to Chugchilan. The rooms are located aboveground, which always makes me feel safer.

Hotel Central is affiliated with Hotel Cotopaxi around the corner, which arranges day trips to the volcano. The location is convenient to restaurants and convenience stores and very safe. It's a long walk from the bus station, but everything is, as the station is on the other side of the bridge leading into town.

This is not a backpacker hotel. There is no real common area for meeting other travelers, although it was quite hard to tell if there was anyone else in the hotel anyway. I didn't really mind, because there wasn't much to do in Latacunga besides sleep and explore the outlying area.

The room was really quite nice, and my left luggage seemed pretty secure, so it was worth coming a bit out of my budget. I'm not sure hotels in Latacunga come much cheaper anyway, since many tourists like myself mainly use it as a base for visiting Cotopaxi and the Quilatoa loop.

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