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Located between Rincón de la Victoria and Torre del Mar, Benajarafe is effectively divided into two separate parts: Benajarafe Alto and Benajarafe Costa.
Benajarafe Alto is largely made up of traditional rural properties scattered in the hills overlooking the coast and reached by a narrow road leading up from the highway. Once a largely agricultural area, rural tourism and horse riding now make an important contribution to the local economy.
The Nuestra Señora del Rosario Hermitage is at the heart of Benajarafe Alto, and is the setting for a “romería”, or pilgrimage, every October. Of typically Andaluz style it was restored by the local residents’ association between 1996 and 1999. It has just one nave, a belltower and a fine wooden door.
By contrast to Benajarafe Alto, Benajarafe Costa, which once survived from fishing, is today a bustling little seaside resort and a number of smart new developments have sprung up in recent years. Most construction is low rise, with just two tower blocks in the locality.
The wide, sandy beach stretching for more than two kilometres is obviously the main attraction, and attracts plenty of visitors in the summer as well as a sizeable foreign resident community; non-Spaniards account for about 18 per cent of Benajarafe’s population.
Beach facilities include showers, rubbish bins, foot washers, walkways and two children’s play areas.
There is still some commercial fishing from the area, mainly for sardines, anchovies and horse mackeral, as well as sports fishing.
Benajarafe was settled as far back as pre historic times, as the remains of cave paintings prove. The Phoenicians also settled in the area, and historians believe the Greek town of Mainake was located close by. But the name Benajarafe stems from the Moorish period and the Arab Ben-Al-Sharif, meaning Son of the Heights.
It was here than in 1483 the battle of the Anarquía was fought, the last great victory of the Moors in Andalucía. And it from this period that Benajarafe’s most characteristic monument dates, the Torre Moya. This is the biggest tower of this type on the eastern Málaga coast.
Another reminder of the past is the railway station: between the 1920s and 1960s there was a rail service running along the coast from Málaga to Zafarralla.