"OUR PICK: The eco-conscious ¡école! is a travel experience in itself. It's a meeting point for conscientious travelers and a tranquil and artsy hangout where you can plan excursions, get a massage, or learn a something or two about conservation. Rooms are small, clean, and comfortable but the walls are thin and voices carry, so it's not a wild party hostel. Don't miss the excellent vegetarian restaurant (which means no picnicking outside your room). The staff are adorable. They even encourage co-showering. Need we say more?"
• Lonely Planet, Chile & Easter Island (2009)
Nearly 40 partners own this pleasant hostel, which offers small but clean and comfortable rooms with beds that come with goosedown comforters. ¡école! sees a predominantly international crowd from backpackers to families traveling on a budget. it has a very good vibe throughout and a nice outdoor patio with picnic tables... great reading materials in small lounge from travel guides to environmental oriented literature to logging protest roosters. The hostel is part restaurant, part lodging, part ecology center.
• Frommers Argentina and Chile (2004)
¡école! ... takes its name from Chilean expression meaning "Great!" ... part hostel and part beach house.
• Fodor's Chile (2004)
One of Chile's most enjoyable and educational places to stay. ¡école! was started in 1994 as a joint Chilean and North American venture, a base for sending out ecologists and other workers to the private nature reserve Cani. it offers a wealth of information on the region's natural wonders, besides being just a really good place to lay your backpack for a few nights. The cheerful, colorful rooms are named after tress (araucaria, cypress, alerce) while the gleaming new shared bathrooms bear the names of birds (loica, chucao). In the summertime, the best place to chill out is on the outside patio, under grapevine trellis, where you can sit at a table with a cup of herbal tea of just snooze in one of their hammocks.
The restaurant in ¡école! serves up entirely meatless dishes in a chill atmosphere, amid leafy plants and peacefully soporific tunes. A young palm tree even grows right through the center of one of the tables. Wide range of meal-sized salads and omelettes to choose from. Try the tabuli made from Andean quinoa...
• Let's Go Travel Guide Chile (2003)
