Free breakfast, mud, toast

Never ever even consider a 'free breakfast' to be a selling point in your choice between Latin American hostels. It is never more than 1 cup of bad coffee (does the job) and 2 pieces of tiny cold toast. If there is anything else in the toss up, go with that instead.

Incidentally, why are loaves (as in, proper loaves) of bread in the rest of the world so tiny? It seems to be a very British thing to have a big loaf of bread which you can make many decent sandwiches out of. Most countries have a choice between their native crusty or floppy, flat, tiny, thin or long bread (which are often lovely, but not very sandwich- apt) and an intensely processed homogenized loaf which is barely big enough to accommodate one circle of salami.