When I lived in Ivory Coast, West Africa and was on a very tight budget, I flew to Bamako (on a Russian plane), trained to Dakar (27 hours to travel 200 miles), 5th classed on a cruise ship to the Canaries (not even a bed), and flew to Madrid (it was inexpensive because I was flying within Spain) and hitchhiked down to Torremelinos to meet my Dutch BF.

There was usually a 2-day stayover in the Canaries involved because of bad schedules. At that time, there were a lot of Spaniards vacationing in the Canaries. It was also the time that Franco was running the country.

Although Torremelinos was, how shall i say?, WILD, the Canaries were pretty tame.

I know things have changed but I wouldn't go back.