Donkey

On Thursday afternoon we returned to Urbanizacion Voltacado and successfully located the Johnston's villa. We had a splendid afternoon relaxing, chatting and nibbling by their pool with Carol and Mark and their friends Gary and Nicola while the combined families played pool and in the pool. Their villa, booked through Mijas Villas was one of the newer vast, airy, tiled affairs with plenty of space to roam around in and a large garden with pool. Eve showed Sean up by doing multiple cartwheels although I didn't know Sean could do a one-handed cartwheel. And his headstand is coming on well too.

Once back in our own holiday house and after a light dinner (everyone had been grazing all afternoon) I headed into Mijas Pueblo myself for an evening stroll. The town was lively with stalls and a band playing in the main square and plenty of people eating and wandering about. I came across a flamenco exhbition in the Alcazabar then wandered slightly off the beaten track to the western end of town. This is more "tipico" and less touristy, with the houses piled up the slope of the mountain on top of one another. After the hubbub of the town centre it was remarkably quiet despite the density of dwellings and I stopped to survey the view to the plains below with peace only broken by the tolling of the bells signalling the hour and the occasional dog bark.

I followed a track that wound round the cliff beneath the bull ring, the hills below tumbling away towards Fuengirola and was surprised to find a very rustic stable in the lee of the bluff with a couple of the many donkeys being stabled for the night. The ubiquitous horses and donkeys and traps that circumnavigate the streets of Mijas have to live somewhere I suppose. There are plenty tethered under the concrete concourse by the main square but I suspect that is a temporary holding area rather than their permanent home. The track carried on and took me beneath the Alcazabar and back to civilisation as dusk fell. On my drive home I nearly piled into the back of a herd of donkeys on the winding Coin road, a feeble red light the only indication they were on the road ahead of me as they were herded across the lane to a back road at the very top of Mijas.