eager2travel2
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We stayed at Cabanas Hermasen for eight nights and really enjoyed it. They are located on the main street at the North end of Maitencillo. We had a hard time finding accommodation in Maitencillo while looking from Toronto and were surprised to see lots of cabanas and rental houses once we were there. I don't think they promote tourism there so it's mostly the locals who stay in these places, so if you have a Chilean contact I'm sure they could find more rental options. ||||Parking is included which is awesome as the streets can be a gong show during busy times. Two of the staff members spoke English, otherwise we had to get by with our limited Spanish words and playing charades. Yes, the cabins are decorated in a rustic, handmade kind of style but they are charming, comfortable and clean and have all you really need. We stayed in #5 which was up a hill just slightly and was private enough for us. It had a fireplace which we didn't use as it was summer, but would be super cozy in the colder months. The beds and linens were good quality, the kitchenette had enough basics for two people, the bathroom was good (although the shower curtain would float inwards and stick to you during a shower which was very annoying. We had to weigh it down with shampoo bottles) and the sound insulation between us and the cabin next door was great as we could barely hear them (we shared a wall). It was great falling asleep hearing the waves at night! ||||The hotel restaurant was good although we found it to be a bit pricy. Having said that, we found a lot of the restaurants to be surprisingly pricy; comparable to dinners in Toronto. The upper level and the patio there had a great view, but unfortunately we were not allowed to sit there as they were the smoking section and we had our 4 month old with us. It's the law in Chile that a child cannot be in a smoking section which I think is great. The downside is almost all outdoor patios are smoking! However I was told that as of March 2013 all restaurants were going to be nonsmoking. Breakfast was fine but was the same every day which got a bit boring: eggs done to your liking, buns cheese, ham, cake loaf, jam and coffee/tea. ||||Maitencillo is a fun beach town that gets very busy. Because we had our baby we couldn't do lot of the things we would have normally done (like spends days on the beach!), but we still managed to enjoy the long clean beaches and had a few good meals at surrounding restaurants. We really enjoyed Zapallar as well. It has a gorgeous beach in a Mediterranean-like setting and has two restaurants there right on the water. There's also a seawall walk below all of the nice houses. If you drive further along the coast heading north there are nice views of the ocean and some great architecture.