Brit holidaymakers call for ban on ‘miserable' Costa del Sol seaside attraction
Clare Meaning travelled to La Cala de Mijas in the Costa del Sol with her husband and five-year-old, but left the hillside town feeling upset by what they saw.
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The 48-year-old alerted Born Free charity, whilst PETA have been lobbying the Mijas mayor Ana Carmen Mata to end the donkey rides in the area.
A number of experts have also joined the fight to stop the rides after a number of reviews slammed the town and called for change.
The donkeys - and a number of horses - line the centre of the town, waiting for tourists to book a cart ride which the animals then pull along.
However, Clare commented that the animals were made to stand in 31C heat for hours on end, often without access to water between rides.
Clare - who monitored the situation throughout the day she was in the town - saw that some of the donkeys were even frothing at their mouth.
Others were falling down a hill due to fatigue and some were standing in their own urine unable to move.
A manager in the hotel Clare was staying at, told her that the donkeys are made to carry out the rides seven days a week.
Clare, a nutritionist from Blandford Forum, Dorset, said: "The donkeys looked emaciated.
"I'm very animal welfare-minded and this was a completely unnecessary exploitation of animals and there's no need for it.
"They weren't even getting water when waiting for a ride.
I took my kids to an amazing family-friendly campsite and it has pizza nights, baby donkeys and costs just £5 each a night
"Reasonably frequently they were taken out for rides.
"We saw one frothing at the mouth and I think the guys that ride them are quite forceful."
She added that she believes there is a way in which this practice can be monitored and done in a safe way.
However, she also noted that the animals are currently being "used like machines".
Clare continued: "I can only guess that this started as a traditional method but over years has been exploited for tourists and the animals are now being used like machines for gain.
"It can be done in a way if it's monitored, they do less hours and are well looked after, perhaps.
"It's really stuck with me and it's very upsetting to see."
Meanwhile, other shocked tourists have taken to Tripadvisor to share their thoughts.
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One visitor said: "Mijas is a place with unique beauty, but donkey-taxi is its bad part fixed.
"I'm sick of going on trips and crossing paths with exploitation of innocents like this, animals spend endless hours in the sun, tied with short ropes without food or water working 365 days a year. Miserable."
Another stated: "The town of Mijas Pueblo is a beautiful gem in the mountains of southern Spain however a poor piece of it is the Burro Taxi, one look at these beautiful creatures tied up under a poor shelter with no food or water just made my mouth go dry.
"There was a lower area where some were tied in the shade but again no food and water available an these sweltering conditions and one donkey was very reluctant to leave the shade but was forced to.
"These conditions are not good for them, highly advise walking through the town to experience Mijas to the max and improve the welfare of the Donkeys ASAP!"
Local resident Lynda, who has lived in and around Mijas for the past 30 years, commented: "I've tried many times over the years to get them to change it.
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"Local government always say it's terrible but they never stop anything.
"It's a very pretty village and people all want pictures with the donkeys and the owners employ halfwits to get these donkey taxi fares."
Lynda also explained how the donkeys work until midnight and then they are just put into lockups in the village.
The lockups are also outside so it is "stifling hot" and the ride operators "just stuff as many they can in there".
"They're given old stale mushed up bread so they don't have to spend money on proper food," Lynda said.
"Then in mornings they come out all filthy and their feet are cracked and broken from all the rides they do."
Lynda also believes the practice won't be outlawed due to it's long-standing tradition.
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She added: "But these donkeys are going to die, they're just slavery there to earn money and that is it.
"Over the years we've protested and protested and we finally managed to get a shelter for them to stand under and then we had to protest to get water.
"It's barbaric. There's no stables, there's nowhere for them to go."
Back in 2019, the town did ban tourists over 12.5 stone from taking donkey rides, however many think this is not enough.
Plus, last year, campaigners also called for donkey rides to be banned in a popular UK seaside town.
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Daily Mail
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Times
11 hours ago
- Times
The charming town in Andalusia that deserves more attention
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'Now I can't leave it. I can't sell it — it's my life.' After Stuart moved in, he worked as a guide, taking visitors on bicycle tours of this lesser-known region, before turning his home into a B&B. He managed to buy adjoining properties — some in ruins — and eventually, in 2001, transformed the collection of medieval buildings into the 21-room Casa del Califa, which soon earned its reputation as one of Andalusia's most charming boutique hotels. Two of its sister properties are neighbours: the quieter eight-room Las Palmeras opened in 2015, the only hotel in town with a swimming pool; the swisher Plaza 18 opened its six 19th-century rooms in 2020. Like a patient older sibling, La Casa del Califa has had to wait for Stuart's full attention, and it finally came last year, in the form of a top-to-toe makeover, its first in 25 years. 'I was never able to invest a lot — the hotel grew little by little — so it became a bit of a jumble,' Stuart says. 'Now we've tried to refine it, making everything more sumptuous, more cohesive.' That's easier said than done in a hotel made up of buildings from the 10th to the 16th centuries; it takes me a few days and a few wrong turns to make sense of the narrow staircases, connecting hallways, surprising courtyards and ancient archways. It's hotel design by way of MC Escher and Lewis Carroll. You think you've entered at the ground floor but, because Vejer stands on a hill, much of the hotel is downstairs — apart from the rooms that are upstairs, of course. 'The hardest thing has been the plumbing,' Stuart says. There are bedrooms in what were once stables, and restaurant tables in former water cisterns and grain silos. 'I've never changed the volume of the spaces, just adapted them.' • The easy way to see Andalusia's beautiful, history-packed villages It's his interior designer wife, Ellie Cormie, who can take credit for the updated decor. 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In the Africa suite under the eaves — which I share with my husband and son (it was once Stuart's family apartment) — there's an old steamer trunk, bentwood armchairs upholstered with patterned hide, large rugs on the terracotta floor and framed black-and-white portraits of African people. Through the windows on one side we catch wafts of conversation, smoke and the tinkling fountains of Plaza de España; on the other side we can see all the way to Africa, the Atlas mountains shimmering in the distance. • The 25 coolest hotels in Andalusia Alongside its lovely new interiors, what Casa del Califa has always had is phenomenal views. Stuart's favourite room is No 12, a relatively modest double with a tasselled canopy over the bed, lots of windows and direct access to one of the hotel's panoramic terraces. You might think that a hilltop town would have views coming out its ears, but Moorish settlements like this were built more for protection from enemies and the elements than for panoramas and public viewpoints. Step through La Casa del Califa's front door, however, and look out the other side — from bedrooms, terraces and especially the rooftop tea-and-cocktail joint La Teteria del Califa — and you realise that you've landed one of the best seats in the town's natural amphitheatre. Royal-icing-white houses step sedately down the slope, their rosy dawn blush becoming a shades-on dazzle by noon. Below the town are rice fields, marshes and grazing retinto cattle; beyond them the oak-draped Sierra de los Alcornocales, the sea and another continent. It's not unlike Santorini in terms of spectacle — just without the eye-watering prices and queues of selfie-seekers. Not that streetside Vejer is short on eye candy. We have the Plaza de España for starters, but for mains and pud we get stuck in to the delicious tangle of medieval streets — glimpses of leafy patios through open doors; little independent boutiques and galleries; café tables on ramparts or in the shadow of the mosque-turned-church; a 15th-century castle with its Moorish arches and tropical gardens. Sure, it's touristy, and Airbnb has ruffled feathers here as it has elsewhere, but most visitors are Spanish and the tourism seems well managed. There are parallels with hippyish Tarifa, southeast along the coast, and Chefchaouen, the Moroccan mountain town with which Vejer is twinned, but Vejer is the boho sophisticate of the three — the place for grown-up hippies. • Read our full guide to Spain Strolls and cerveza stops and low-key sightseeing make Vejer the sort of place where it's easy to lose track of time. But we make sure that we keep our appointment at the hammam. Moorish Vejer didn't have one, but Stuart opened his where one would have been, near the mosque, and Cormie has decorated it with artisan wood and brasswork from Marrakesh. In the pleasingly dark and echoey space we dunk our way round the pools — from tepid to hot, to soap and salt scrub in the steam room, to a gaspingly cold plunge under a star-punctured dome. A sweet mint tea for the road and we're drifting back out into the street, feeling as zen as only grown-up hippies can — especially ones who've dried their cossies in the possibly-not-artisan spinny machine. On a previous visit to Vejer, in October 2019, we ventured out of town for surf lessons at El Palmar, a 20-minute drive away, and to explore the installations by Turrell, Eliasson and Abramovic at Fundacion NMAC, the brilliant pine forest sculpture park ten minutes' drive away. We visited Barbate — not because it was Franco's favourite seaside spot, but for its El Campero restaurant, which does masterful things with every part of a tuna — I still remember the exquisite fatty gill. Next time maybe we'll bring our walking boots for the trails around Vejer or sign up for a foodie tour with Annie B — like Stuart, a Scot adopted by the town as one of its own. This time we combine history with swimming and sandcastles by the dunes on Cape Trafalgar. And one evening we join a walking tour of Vejer with Juan Jose Ruiz. It's in Spanish, but he gives us an English-language pamphlet and recaps for us along the way, so we get the gist. He leads the group through the old town, taking us to courtyards and corners we might otherwise have missed, regaling us with ancient tales of thieves, ghosts, star-crossed lovers and the mysterious cobijadas — emblematic women of the 16th-century town who showed just one eye from behind a black veil. But every walking tour needs a twist, and Ruiz's is that he performs his as a walking minstrel, complete with a hooded cape, little leather bootees and a guitar to accompany his sung stories. It's … unconventional, but somehow it works. So it's not strictly true that I've never seen a Vejeriego burst into song. And it's not just Plaza de España — all the town's a stage. This article contains affiliate links that will earn us revenue Liz Edwards was a guest of the Califa Group, which has B&B doubles at La Casa del Califa from £108, mains at El Jardin del Califa from £12 and at Califa Tapas from £9 and 90-minute hammam sessions from £35pp ( She was also a guest of Vueling, which flies to Malaga from £39 ( and Marimantas Vejer, which has walking tours from £10 ( Do you have a favourite town in Spain? Let us know in the comments
