Mijas to Fuengirola

Like so many things in life, what strides out optimistically on best foot, ends with inevitable disappointment as harsh reality consumes all before it. Or, to put it another way, this linear tour from Mijas to Fuengirola was great until I reached Fuengirola, when it became a lengthy and somewhat unpleasant slog to reach the bus station.
I started it on a high having completed a brief tour of Mijas and it was all downhill, literally, from thereon.
Most of the tour is on roads, but, until you reach Fuengirola these are little used, so you’re not forever stopping to let cars pass you. Of course, the roads make for easy walking, but they still do provide great views over the countryside.
Camino Lopas del Flamenco at some stage becomes a dirt track, though a track as wide as a road and so used by the occasional vehicle; It eventually reverts to a normal tarmaced road.
On the outskirts of Fuengirola you pick up the Camino Viejo de Coín and follow this all the way into town, going past car-breakers, stonemasons, furniture stores, etc. A problem you face is that there is to start with no pavement, so you are on a busy road close to the traffic. Eventually, I found I was able to avoid the noise and dirt of the traffic by walking along the banks of a river leading into town. Unfortunately, this only went so far and then I was back on the Camino Viejo de Coín, though by now, with a pavement on each side.
My planned route had, though I did not realise, the railway station as its destination. Fortunately, the bus station was just around the corner. For reasons only the Spanish can understand it is impossible to buy your ticket on the bus there: instead, you must go to the ticket office, ten yards away, having been suitably admonished by the bus driver.