June 14 Brañosera to Reinosa

A nightmare of a day, even before I tripped on a black thing on the road in Reinosa—I was not looking for black things on the road—and whacked my forehead so that now I have a huge egg over my eye.  But at least the phone did not break nor did a tooth.  

My opinion of the guidebook when I first started reading it was that it was cavalier.  Now I need an adjective that goes way beyond that, like shouldn't have been published in its present state.  Today was described as so easy that one could get to Reinosa and take the bus on to Corconte (missing the stage between those to places, which I am missing for reasons about to be explained) in time for lunch.  Is he kidding?  

First, John, that is the author's name, John Hayes, has the walker follow his special route, which he claims to be far superior to the official route.  Now, it was not his fault that it took me 30 minutes to find the way out of Brañosera, but the cemetery that he gave as a landmark was hardly obvious.  It isn't as if the walls said "Cementario" or anything and if you are short, you cannot see over the very high wall, pero bueno, I finally found it, but the dirt path you were supposed to take "near" the cemetery did not exist.  I took the road for the first stretch.  

Then, yes, there was some pleasant walking once you found the way to go after the road.  But it is always something:

That sign was worth a shrug.

And fortunately, I did not want to fish:

 Then, we are told, that as you pass into Cantabria, ha ha, all the signage pretty much disappears and the path is not maintained.  I will not describe every wander and every horror, just a couple because probably the bump over my eye is interfering with my memory.

After many, and I mean many false starts and turnings back and that sort of thing that eat up time like pac-man or whoever, eats up those creatures—you get to this trail and think, "Thank God, someplace you can really move on and just blast on ahead.  So I do.  After a reasonable time, I neurotically check my GPS and was horrified to see that I had walked almost a mile on this lovely track only it was WRONG.  Is there anything to do but turn back?  So I did.

At the junction, one could see a very very subtle path going off to the left.  That was THE path, well, John's path, but after a while, it was worse than anything in Scotland.  I don't know how I managed my way out of the thistles and thorns and briars and whatnot up to my shoulders and muck and holes and water underfoot, and really intended, if I could, to find my way back to Brañosera and take a taxi.  Somehow, not even entirely intentionally at this point, I made my way to where I was supposed to be, and bumbled along to it-is-clear-that- this-is where-you-are-to-go and continued on.

Did this cow care?

All God's creatures gotta eat:

 The route was one disaster after another, then, the last stretch, hardly before lunch even considering Spanish dining hours, was along a highway with no shoulder and this for a several miles. MILES!  I trudge and trudge.  At last, it is now about 3:00, a lady in a car stops and asks if I am perdida (lost).  She thinks I am supposed to be doing the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.  No, I tell her, I am not perdida, I am just schlepping along to Reinosa.  And then with the greatest amount of chtuzpah, I ask her if she is in a hurry.  She is not, so I ask her if she would drive me, even though she was going in the opposite direction.  She did.  Was that nice or what!!  I had already walked 18.5 miles and it would have taken me well over an hour to get to el Hotel San Roque.  So, being totally done in from the trauma of the morning and the seemingly endless highway walking, I graciously got into the car with la señora and had a lovely little ride along the ugly highway to Reinosa.

Once checked in, I was dying for a hot shower and some decent food.  There was no hot water, but lunch at the hotel, at 4:00, was excellent: judías con tomate (judías is the name for green beans, don't ask) and grilled trout. Then I worked on setting up the new GPS, which had arrived safely from England.  Also needed time to get some supplies and honestly to recover form a few really hard days. With not a whole lot of agony, I decided to take the taxi with Rojita mañana and check out the start of the path from Corconte to Pedrosa de Valdeporres.