We had a great experience with this hotel! We arrived fairly late into Puno from Cusco (avoid Turismo del mer) and the staff at the hotel were great! We got our room quickly and they even contacted the tour operator we were using whilst in Puno so we could be briefed. The room was spacious and clean with bathroom. Because its peru, we expected less, and this place certainly exceeded expectations. The location was fantastic, 5 min walk from the plaza and all the eateries. Free internet and the breakfast buffet was good in range and quality, you would understand after eating just bread every morning! they had yoghurt, cereal, fruit, eggs, meat and yes, different types of bread! What made our stay great was when we came back to the hotel from our homestay, they informed us that our bags which had been in storage had already been taking up to our rooms and that everything was ready for us! now thats service! a perfect stay and many thanks to the staff who made it great!

I would like to thank the staff at Balsa in for taking extra special care of me during my stay in Puno. Especially Mrs. Marisol (head house keeper) and Mr. Orlando. They were friendly and helpful and made sure my room was well kept when I was unwell.
Gracias
Julie from Australia

I stayed here for 2 nights as part of a tour around Peru.

This hotel was perfectly adequate with free coca tea, hearty breakfast which started early, fairly large rooms and helpful staff.

The hotel was included in my tour and I probably would not have selected it myself but was suitable for us and better than others I stayed in.

The Balsa Inn doesn't have to try too hard, as many tour operators use this hotel. They must get good deals to put up with the complaints from their guests. If you eat breakfast here by a window, concrete can be dumped right next to you. People carry rocks and concrete through the hallways as they're building something on the roof. This is the hotel that jack built. Some corridors are just bricked off as if they sealed something nasty inside.
it would not surprise me one bit if that was true. We stayed here twice, the rooms are cold, one room someone had been to use the toilet, never flushed and left it for weeks. This overflow room had had the water cut off it hadn't been used for so long. Imagine the surprise when they checked me into it. Imagine too getting checked into one room, that smelled awful, so you ask to move to another worse room. Manager says he has nothing else, so you go back to the smelly room. Only to find someone had been in - in those two minutes - and urinated on the toilet, the seat, the floor, and never flushed. They left me to clean it up. Some rooms have showers with louvre vent windows opening into a lobby/hallway. From various floors you can see right into the shower and bathroom - and you can see a lot! Outside the room little piles of dirty clothes would show up, when I asked one passing employee, they just shrugged their shoulders. The clothes would come and go... As I say, it's just plain weird here. It's like you're in the way of some grander project and you can just make do because they're all so damn busy with something far more important.
The heat is poor here, hotel looks ok in the lobby, there is free internet, but uses ancient software and someone kept changing the setting to record all your site passwords. Every PC in peru and Bolivia has a non genuine version of Windows or so it seems, so if your mail needs a modern browser, it's gonna be tough.
Having said that this is Peru and the hotels here are all pretty much a hit or miss affair. That said, no one comes to Puno for the town, there's not much redemption here, and the nearby airport town of Juliaca is a bit worse. You are only safe on the main drag between the two downtown squares, where there's lots of armed cops guarding bank doorways. All the touristy restaurants are here.
Puno is the boat gateway to Lake Tititcaca, and on Taquile, Uros and Amantani it's a million miles from Puno in every sense. That's not a bad thing! If you come here, do a homestay with a family on Amantani, a far better use of your time than Puno. Nobody there would pee on your toilet seat and floor, they maybe poor, but they are clean and nice!