Nice family owned hostel.
They only have 1 guestroom, so you won't meet other travellers here but it's a great place if you want a more local experience.
The room was nice and clean, and very affordable for a private room.
Option to rent scooters here as well.
The family is super sweet and friendly. They where very welcoming and the lady of the house gave good tips on what to do at ometepe.
We rented a dirtbike for two days from here. We had trouble getting cash out of the atm and the owner was super kind, figured something out with us and our hotel. The bike itself was in great shape, we had so much fun. We ended up booking a taxi here as well since it was such a good experience. 10/10 experience, definitely recommend to other ometepe travellers!
Please note that this review is about the rental company, not the restaurant.
We were staying at one of the properties at the edge of the Maderas vulcano. The property is in contact with several ATV rental companies and they arranged an ATV for us. The price for this was 65$ / day and we were supposed to use it for three days. It got dropped of on the morning of day 1 at 8AM. Everything looked fine, we were excited to explore the island.
The first trip we made was around the maderas vulcano. The quad was pretty powerful. However, the first issue occured when we wanted to go towards Moyogalpa to see the sunset. While driving, we heard a metal bang and something came off the ATV. We immediately stopped and realized we had no power anymore. Thus, we called our property and they were able to get ahold of the rental company to get us back to our place before it got dark. They also promised to deliver a new/fixed quad the next afternoon and gave us half a day for free for the inconvenience. We found this to be very reasonable. The "patron" mentioned a few times about me driving too fast, though I never exceeded the max speed of 45 kph (less near speed bumps / towns). Overall, they were nice to us on this day and I felt like they were service oriented and concerned for us rather than money oriented.
Cut to the next day (afternoon) and the quad was supposedly fixed. We wanted to have it delivered on a specific location since I was already on a tour on the island. This was only possible for 10 USD, which seemed a too much but we went for it anyway. Their logic was that the delivery otherwise left them stranded in a place they did not need to be. This was a first warning sign.
Once delivered, the owner (patron) drove away in his truck to go deliver other products en route (so it seemed he supposedly needed to go there anyway). His employee stayed and came with me since I made a deal on the drop off location to fill up the tank (I assumed they would have done this given the inconvenience it has caused for me, I had to pay 8 dollars in the morning to get to my activity). This deal was 6 litres of gas for 10 dollars. Plus, I drove his employee home to where the 6 litres were filled in my tank (so in the end no one was stranded so what did I pay my 10 USD for?).
We arrived after driving for half an hour to the gas place. While getting off the ATV we saw a ton of smoke coming out of the quad. I stood there for around an hour discussing with some locals and the employee on the safety of the quad. In the end, the decision was made not to drive further in the current status. It is likely that their mechanic fixed the initial problem but caused another. The fact that they did not have a new quad caused them to not fully test the fixed quad. Therefore neglecting some safety aspects for it. This day, they gave me back 10$ which I paid for the 6L.
My property managed the remainder of the contact with them and also fixed a new quad through another company.
Main things that caused two stars:
1) Paying 10 USD for the delivery of the "fixed" quad, and another 10 to fill it up with gas. Given the inconvenience we had, in my opinion a good company wouldn't do this.
2) Trying to charge us for a full day (65$) whilst we had the atv from 08:30 until 16:30 (when it broke down). And also not giving back the delivery costs of 10$ for a defect quad right away.
3) We heard from the property that they also still tried to charge us 15$ suddenly for gas after we already had the new ATV from the other company. Maybe this was a miscommunication because it seemed ridiculous.
4) It really seems after these above issues that the owner is the one pulling the strings. His employee has to triple check everything with him. The owner could have a more customer focus than money focus.
In the end we ended up paying 50$. Maybe our property reimbursed the gap of what they charged and what we wanted to pay. I hope not. The reaction of the owner to negative reviews says a lot. Looking forward to mine ;)
We rented bicycles from Jose and had a great time cycling round the island. He dropped the bikes off and picked them up from our hotel for us which was helpful. We also used his taxi service to take us to the port and he turned up on time and gave us a good price. He speaks excellent English as well.
REALLY BAD EXPERIENCE, one of our scooters had a lot of problems and broke down. The other ones were using so much fuel. After spending 2 hours trying to fix it he offered us 2 hours extra and when arriving at the agreed time they charged us for one hour extra (5$/h/scooter), screamed on us, PUSHED US and wouldn’t give us our ID documents back. They also tried to charge us for more gas than what they added back in the scooter. All over all a really bad experience with untrustworthy scooters, violent and dishonest owners. Please consider going somewhere else
Only rent a scooter and taxi to port. First impression was good, scooter was powerful, explanation was well and friendly. We rent for 2 and a half day. After one day, scooter acceleration failed many times, very uncomfortable. Standard Light was not working since first day.
Then we want to talk to him, but he was not reallyaccessible. first he was talking perfect English, then he talked and writing in Spanish. ( im not talking spanish) . Typically. We needed a taxi too, we brought the scooter, normally he have to catch it. Then the price for taxi complete overpriced. No discount for complete package. And he settled 7 litres gas, but the tank has only 5 litres.
Completely ripped off, not the vibe i learned on ometepe. Ah, and he was impolite ,rude as well. Because we were 15 minutes too late, And this on ometepe 🤣 he was crying like a baby because his worker had to come for nothing, it was 10 min with bike🙈. And we rent for three days, he had much less work with us. Alberto is not a nice guy, be careful!
Meal type
Other
Food: 1
Service: 1
Atmosphere: 1
They offer really tasty traditional Nicaraguan food. They also have lots of great vegetarian and vegan options. The family is super welcoming. The one daughter even brought some treats and a toy for our dog to play with. We will be back soon. Maybe later today. Lol
Typical Nicaragua food prepared to the next level! We enjoyed pork skewers and papa rellenas with chicken. Dishes were served with lots of veggies and tasty salads with organic greens. Portions are generous. If you're in the area a meal at Mi Ranchito's is a must!
We only planned to stay here for one night and we ended up staying for 4. It is a beautiful family run guesthouse, with gorgeous rooms and wonderful food. We ate breakfast here every single morning and you will not find better smoothies anywhere on the island.
The rooms are so well priced and the location could not be better. We loved this place highly recommend people to stay
DO NOT RENT ANYTHING HERE!!! They are the most DISHONNEST people ever! They lie to you in front of your face… WORST renting experience ever. They even tried to steal our ID’s.
