Hostal Facundo, Tarifa

Well, the rooms are alright. The dorms are pretty standard. Not totally clean either. Hot water comes and goes. The common area is tiny, and the kitchen even smaller. It's really only big enough for one person at a time to cook. That is, if they don't shut off the power. About the power situation -- the staff are incredibly rude once they've got your money. Instead of telling you exactly what time the kitchen closes or giving you any warning, they just shut off the power. So if you are cooking, too bad. Even if you thought you had another fifteen minutes, they will not budge. Then they come up and tell everyone to get out because the living room is closing. All four people that can fit in there. Plus, the refrigerator is in there. So if you had started to cook, say, chicken, you can't put the uncooked stuff in there. It's a total waste. It's not a polite "Sorry guys, we have to close because of noise," it's more of a "Get out! Closed now!" Even if you're just reading. Although it's a family-owned place and they live downstairs, don't count on them for help. One girl got up in the night to use the bathroom. The door locked behind her and she didn't have her key. So she tried knocking, but her roommate didn't wake up. She asked the owners to let her back into her room, but they refused. When I got up early the next morning, she was still sitting in the hallway. If stay here, do not pay online with a credit card. A couple checking in had done that. They had even brought their credit card statement showing that the card had already been charged by the Hostal Facundo. It was right there on paper. But Javier (the rudest staff member of all) refused to acknowledge it, and told them he either had to swipe their card or they could just find another hotel. So they did, and are left to battle it out with the card company. All this after I was told by Javier that the hostal does not accept credit cards. About Javier -- it's a strange thing. He is able to speak English when you are checking in and handing over money, but as soon as you have a question or there is any sort of problem, he tells you that he does not understand English and that he only speaks Spanish. Which is strange, because his English had been good about ten minutes prior. He does it so that people either can't complain or they just get frustrated and give up. Spanish came in handy the night we returned from an overnight trip to Morocco. We had arranged and paid for luggage storage, and told him what time we would return. "Ok ok, no problem. If you decide to stay one more night, you can leave the backpacks and pay for one more day." So we came back at the arranged time only to find the hostal closed. So we rang him on the intercom. He told us that the hostal was closed and that we would have to return the next day. We reminded him about our agreement, and he kept refusing to let us in. This went on back and forth for about ten minutes. Finally he let us in, then had the gall to try to charge us more. I pulled out our receipt. He refused to acknowledge it. This went on until he realized that it was in fact his handwriting and that we were there at the time specified. He was obviously angling for another day of storage charges. At that point, I was just happy to get my bag back. All in all, the hostal has a weird vibe. I would definitely lock your stuff up when you leave because even the cleaning girls seemed a little dodgy. And no, there are no lockers. If I find myself in Tarifa again, there is no way I would stay here. The place is just too much hassle.