The hostal was pretty cool. They have several locations, I stayed in the Colonial hostal which is near the main square but pleasantly removed by about 3 blocks. It is VERY cold at night, but it's cold just about everywhere in Cusco during the winter, so that was to be expected. If you are prepared with warm clothes though it's fine. I was traveling solo, so it was nice that this place had other solo travelers and a bar. There is a bar upstars that serves cheap food and decent priced drinks. The bartender and this girl that gives Salsa lessons were really cool and I had a ton of fun with them. I also met several really cool other travelers so that was nice too. The breakfast was good in the morning, more than just the standard "bread" that most hostal's serve as "breakfast." There is also a resident cat who lives at the hostal, and he/she adds a nice homey feel to the place! Very friendly. The staff were helpful. It can be loud at night with the bar, but the bar closes around 12 so it doesn't go all night. Oh, and the hot water actually works! All in all I would say it was a very good value for the money and I would totally stay here again.

Surface deep this place is fine. If you can sleep heavily through loud noises, lack of curtains and so on. The shower in the double room wet the whole bathroom as the curtain wasn't long enough, this in turn meant the door was warped and didn't close. Nice for privacy. The staff couldn't tear their eyes away from the TV long enough to be interested in you.

Finally, and it's a biggy, the third floor isn't finished, so there's not a roof, there's a gap between the second and third floor which you could easily fall through. And.... they're building a hotel next door and they kept going past 9pm.

Ear plugs, eye mask, good with heights, don't need a roof - you'll be fine.

They have reasonable prices. However, if you want a double room, they do not have any rooms with a private bath. I am ok with shared bathrooms, but in the case of this hostel you have to walk outside to get to the bathroom. In some cases this is fine, but during July in Cusco, it is too cold to do this! We left and went to another hotel nearby.

Pirwa is a great place to meet various people. However, we did not find the staff helpful in arranging things. The tour they helped us book to Machu Picchu was fine, but we could have done a better job on our own. They were of no help in finding things to do in the city. It was very loud and quite cold in the winter time as there is no heat in the building.