Basics - The Rough Guide to Brazil - page 31

Brazilian “motels”

ACCOMMODATION PRICES
Accommodation prices in our listings
represent the minimum you can expect
to pay for a double room (with
bathroom, unless stated otherwise) in
high season, and include all taxes and
service charges . Rates can be cheaper
if you book well in advance, and hotels
usually offer a range of different rooms,
with significant price differences. For
hostels we have also included the price
of a dorm bed , and for campsites prices
are listed per person or per pitch .

In Brazil, a motel , as you'll gather from the names
and decor, is strictly for couples. This is not to say
that it's not possible to stay in one if you can't find
anything else - since they're used by locals, they're
rarely too expensive - but you should be aware that
most of the other rooms will be rented by the hour.

Pensões, postos and pousadas
Small, family-run hotels are called either a pensão
( pensões in the plural) or a hotel familiar . These vary a
great deal: some are no more appealing than a hostel,
while others are friendlier and better value than many
hotels and can be places of considerable character
and luxury. Pensões tend to be better in small towns
than in large cities, but are also usefully thick on the
ground in some of the main tourist destinations. In
southern Brazil, many of the postos , highway service
stations on town outskirts, have cheap rooms and
showers too, and are usually well kept and clean.
You will also come across the pousada , which can
just be another name for a pensão , but can also be a
small hotel, running up to luxury class but usually less
expensive than a hotel proper. In some small towns -
such as Ouro Preto and Paraty - pousadas form the
bulk of mid- and upper-level accommodation
options. In the Amazon and Mato Grosso in particular,
pousadas tend to be purpose-built fazenda lodges
geared towards the growing ecotourist markets.

not invulnerable, anything left in a caixa is safer
than on your person or unguarded in your room.
Many hotels also offer a safe deposit box in your
room, which is the safest option of all.

Rates
Rates for rooms vary tremendously between
different parts of Brazil, but start at around R$35 in a
rural one-star hotel, around R$75 in a two-star hotel,
and around R$100 in a three-star place. In the cities
it can be far more expensive; figure on at least
R$200 a night for a modern, central mid-range
hotel, with bathroom, cable and air conditioning.
You can expect to pay a lot more in São Paulo and
especially Rio, however, where rates have
sky-rocketed in recent years: the cheapest one-stars
charge R$120, while mid-range places are more
likely to be R$300-350, and five-stars will charge
R$800-1500 (and this is outside of Carnaval, New
Year and the World Cup/Olympics periods).
Most hotels - although not all - will add a ten
percent service charge to your bill, the taxa de
service : budget hotels that don't will have a sign at the
desk saying “ Nós não cobramos taxa de serviço ”, and it's
very bad form to leave the hotel without tipping the
receptionist. All hotels are required to add the
municipal services tax (Imposto Sobre Serviços or ISS)
to your bill, usually five percent (English websites
label this “VAT”). Unfortunately hotels tend to
calculate these taxes and charges differently: some
include everything in the price of the room, while
others will add on some or all of the extra charges
when you check out. Annoyingly, many hotels will
add further “taxes” to your bill - these are often calcu-
lated as an additional five percent or charged as a per
night fee, but in practice it's very di cult to differen-
tiate between a legitimate “city tax” and just another
service charge. Make sure you know what the final
price will be when you check-in, and review your final
bill carefully.

Dormitórios and hostels

At the bottom end of the scale, in terms of both
quality and price, are dormitórios , small and very
basic (to put it mildly) hotels, situated close to bus
stations and in the poorer parts of town. They are
extremely cheap (just a few dollars a night), but
usually unsavoury and sometimes downright
dangerous. They should be avoided unless you
have no choice.
You could stay for not much more, in far better
conditions, in a youth hostel , an albergue de
juventude , also sometimes called a casa de estudante ,
where the cost of a dorm bed is usually between
R$35 and R$70 a night. There's an extensive network
of these hostels, with at least one in every state
capital, and they are very well maintained, often in
restored buildings. It helps to have an IYHF card
(available from your national youth hostel associa-
tion) with a recent photograph - you're not usually
asked for one, but every so often you'll find an
albergue that refuses entry unless it's produced. The