Las Palmeras

Situated on the western side of the Plaza Grande, this aptly-​named hotel boasts a tranquil terrace in the shade of a few enormous palm trees. My reasons for liking this hotel is informed by the years I spent living in Zafra, and they are as follows: We didn’t know where to enter the hotel at midday, and it turned out that the waiter on duty at the eponymous restaurant servicing the terrace was doubling as the concierge. He scanned our faces and without saying anything, fetched a pair of room keys, asking before handing them whether we were who he thought we were. This interaction happened more or less behind the hotel bar, and that is very «Zafra».
As it turned out, as the waiter/​barman/​concierge explained, a wedding party had booked and the bride and groom had been given one of the rooms we’d reserved, the one with the king-​sized bed. Makes sense, right? Would YOU deny them a shared bed on their wedding night? We were happy to accept what rooms were left, those with twin twin beds (for those of us who weren’t getting married). Now THAT is some classic Spanish logic in action. Zafra!
The rooms featured a very «Zafra» combination of features and complimentary lacks. The rooms had beautifully painted walls, upon none of which hung a clock. A small television was perched on the wall, but we never discovered the hiding spot of its remote control (not that we wanted to use it, anyway). We didn’t figure out the wi-​fi situation, if there was one to figure out. A petite wooden nightstand stood against the wall between the two beds, and its surface gleamed untroubled by any telephone or wires.
We allowed ourselves to off the grid here, and it was lovely.
The concierge, on our way out the first day, began giving us directions in rapid Spanish but we stopped him and let him know we’d lived there a couple years and knew our way around, thanked him, and began our very relaxing visit.
Paying the man at the end of our stay looked a lot like walking in that first day. With a barkeeper’s view of the barroom we just handed him the modest amount the hotel asks and in this way, our stay the Palmeras hotel was bookended by loose, easygoing versions of what some would expect to be formal, programmed interactions. Accepting this style of business is the first step toward understanding and appreciating the «churretin» way of life.