Jabanga Hostel

For my first trip to Rio, my friend suggested I stay in Botafoga. Halfway between Copacabana/​Ipanema and Lapa, this neighborhood was a good spot to have a home base. I looked around at some hotels and hostels and settled on Jabanga as the price for a single room was pretty good. I stayed an entire week.
Staff was nice, some speaking better English than the others. I missed the breakfast every day but came downstairs in the afternoon to pastries and coffee most days. And the coffee was pretty good.
Wifi worked great for my entire stay except for one day where it went out. I guess that’s to be expected in Brazil. Frustrating, but surely not the staff’s fault. It was working again the next day.
I had my own A/​C in my room which worked great. I had to rearrange the furniture when I arrived so there would be an outlet near my bed to plug in my phone. Under the furniture it was really, really dirty.
The bathrooms were fairly clean, but the hostel was pretty empty so if it was full I imagine it might be worse. There were three showers in the men’s bathroom, and I couldn’t get any of the three to stay at a good temperature — either too hot or too cold, so I had to toggle back and forth.
Great bar across the street with good beers and some food… ask for Rafael!