Been about 10 years, but my last trip was to the Canary Islands, basically Spanish colony, but closer to Africa than Europe, primarily the islands of Tenerife and La Gomera. My GF at the time was working for a travel company in Ireland and she got us cheap car rental and a free condo for 3 weeks at a small but very nice family run property. The prices were actually much cheaper than I expected for gas, drinks, food etc. The food was amazing, had some of the best beef I ever had at a steakhouse there, Argentinian beef. The seafood was always very fresh. I was talking with the owner of one of the locals fav seafood spots and he told me that every bit of seafood that is served that day was swimming in the water that morning. At another place, the fisherman had just dropped off the day's catch and the waiter let me go to the back and pick out my fish, still alive and flopping around. I also had some of the best goat, I have ever had, when I asked the waiter where they got the goat. He looked at me quizzically and told me that it was his father's goat and they had butchered it that morning. If you go make sure and check out one of the farmer's markets on the weekends, lots of great homemade foods and local wines, cheeses etc, very inexpensive too. I think every restaurant we ate at also served a free shot at the end of meals, usually banana liqueur. In some of the small family ones the waiters would join us in the shot.
Great black sand beaches everywhere, only a couple of white sand ones, the white sand was brought over from the Sahara. Pretty easy to find a quiet empty beach around the islands if you're looking. They don't get many Americans, but everybody was extremely friendly and talkative. We only ran into 1 other American while we were there, a soldier on leave that was stationed in Kuwait, iir. I speak Spanish, but English is spoken by most there as well, as is many other languages. We decided to spend a couple days or so on La Gomera and I told my GF, I would take care of the room. I was going to try and rent a Casa Rurale, houses rented out by the locals, online before the trip, but after speaking to someone that had been there frequently they told me just to walk into any bar, restaurant, or store in the area we wanted to stay and ask if anyone had something for rent. We got to this cool small town on the coast late in the day. My GF asked if this was where we were staying and told her yes, but I don't know where yet and told her my plan. She flipped out a bit, especially when she didn't see any type of hotels anywhere. We wandered around the small town and found a little store and I asked the girl at the counter if she knew where we could find a room. The girl smiled, said yes and ran out of the store, leaving us completely alone. She came back a few minutes later with an older woman, she said she had a couple apartments to rent and lead us outside, around the corner and through some beautiful French-style doors. We go upstairs and shows us a very nice apt., explains that all the slate floors and counters were from the island and her husband and son built all the wood cabinets. It was very cool especially when she lead us to the terraza, just in time to see the sun setting. I asked my GF if the apt was alright, all she could do was giggle and squeal......lol The lady told me it was 20 something Euros a night, about $30 at the time and also included a place to park that would be locked up and included pastries and coffee in the morning. Not a bad deal for $30!
If you go, I would definitely recommend going online and renting a Casa Rurale from a local. You can get a whole furnished house and many are extremely cool for less than you could rent a condo at a resort. I don't know if I would recommend the blindly walking into a store or bar thing for a whole trip, but should still work for a night or two if you wanted to visit another island.
