Lordy, you should have just planted yourself in Sitges, Calafel, or some other Catalan beach town and you would have (in the late 90s) landed yourself an undocumented job in about 30 seconds. That place was awash with more tourists and money than people knew what to do with, and plenty of bars and restaurants would have jumped at the semi-novelty of a good looking college aged American clearing tables. People might bemoan about the "real" Spain, but trust me, that is the real Spain/Catalunya for a big chunk of the year, I was the only American in a duplex of 8 Castellanos.
read much Paul Bowles? Pete Doorish and I were in Tangier in the early '80's, looking for him. When we got off the ferry, we were accosted by these youths who wanted to be our guides. When we wouldn't hire them they began banging on the taxi shouting "hey jew boy, hey jew boy".
Don't feel bad about cutting and running; you might not have been drugged, but there was something going on that made you vulnerable. There's a myriad of health issues that you can pick up in that part of the world (parasitical, microbial), that can knock you out, badly. Never a cowardly move to secure your personal safety.
Go figure