Camino Mozarabe Day 7: Castro del Rio to Santa Cruz.

Day 7: Castro del Rio to Santa Cruz.  22 km.

I slept a bit late this morning not waking until 6:40pm. I got up and made tea but didn't go back to bed but prepared the rest of the breakfast. Once dressed and packed first we headed down to the police station to return the albergue key. When that was done we went to the square where we dined yesterday, to find the route, Cicerone gave instructions from there. 

The route to Cordoba is 37 km and a bit too far for us but there was loop to the town of Santa Cruz where we could spend the night. It was about half way but the loop added on approximately 8 km to the section. At the church Madre de Dios we took the left fork as instructed and should have continued down a long street but only a short distance down the hill a Camino sign pointed down a narrow lane to the left. We decided to ignore the guide book and follow the waymark. This lane ended at the river but no more route signs could be seen, we asked a walker out exercising and she said to cross the bridge over the now familiar Rio Guadajoz. Our book made no mention of crossing the river and we were standing around scratching our heads when a couple of peregrinos appeared. They were from Holland and they told us the route was, in fact, over the bridge. We tagged along with them and soon yellow arrows and shell signs began appearing on rocks and posts. It appeared to be the route all right but different from the one described in Cicerone.

We were on the road for a short distance before cutting onto a gravel track through olive groves. But at last it wan't all olive groves, now there were fields of wheat and a couple where, Moira said, the pants were beans. There were some long steep hills and the Dutch couple who had pulled away from us on the flat were slowed down on the ascents, they don't have a lot of hills in Holland for training. Soon there came into view the white buildings of houses going up a pointed hill with a castle sitting on top. This shouldn't be on the route we were expecting to take and correctly assumed it was the town of Espejo and we were on the southern route to Santa Cruz. It didn't make much difference as the distance was the same in both directions. It looked like a good place for a visit anyway, and the waymarks were excellent on this route, so far.

As we entered the town our Dutch companions had got ahead of us and we let them go when we spotted some benches beside a fountain. We stopped for a break and I made a cup of tea. I used the water from the fountain and the tea tasted much better than with the water at the hotels which had a chlorine flavour. When we got going again the route markers led us up the steep hill that climbed to the castle at the top. Half way up it levelled out at the piazza in the centre of the town, a large square lined on two side with orange trees. There we met the Dutch couple again they were coming from a bar where they stopped for coffee. We walked the rest of the way with them.

The markers now had us continuing to climb until we were at the castle walls and there they stopped. We walked round the perimeter of the castle but found nothing to direct us. We asked people for the Camino de Santiago but only got blank stares. We tried Santa Cruz with better results and were directed to a track we could see far below and heading towards a white blur in the distance that we assumed were the houses at our destination. We made our way down through the narrow streets and lanes to reach what we thought was the track we saw from above. There were still no waymarks but a car coming along the track assured us that it was the way to Santa Cruz. We all headed that way. The N432 could be seen a short distance away running in the same direction, I checked the map in the Cicerone and this was as it should be, it was only the lack of yellow arrows that was the worry.

Once we dropped down from the hill it was nice smooth flat track and the olives were now getting less and less as more grain crops were in evidence. We were making good time and striding out when the track suddenly bent to the right and going in the wrong direction. The continuation going straight ahead was just tractor tracks crossing the fields. We all headed up a nearby hill to survey the surrounding countryside and assess our position. The town of Santa Cruz could be clearly seen in the distance but no track that was obviously heading that way. The tractor tracks crossing the field were going towards the N432 and we knew that Santa Cruz was on the highway so we set out on the tractor tracks. We reckoned that if we didn't find a marked track we could walk along the N432 hard shoulder.

It was rough going on our feet walking on the tractor treads in dried mud but it wasn't far to the highway which we ended up having to walk along. It wasn't far before we got a view of the town but as usual it didn't seem to get nearer. After 3 km we picked up yellow arrows and after crossing the Rio Guadajoz, yet again, we picked up a path into the town. Our Dutch friends went looking for a place to eat while our priority was a bed for the night. There was a hotel, that the bloggers we follow used, on the N432 which passed through the centre of Santa Cruz. It was called Casa Jose and we were pleasantly surprised at the price E35, the room was very nice.

After we dumped our bags it was down to the bar for a cool pint of beer. They also supplied a big bowl of olives to go with our drinks. When we got back to the room we had lunch, cheese on bread and a cup of tea. After showering Moira found that there was WiFi and didn't require a pass word. We checked the email, nothing important, then I tuned into the BBC radio and had some entertainment and news. There was still some of the barbecued chicken left from the other night and Moira made a mushroom sauce from a packet of soup she had and cooked it with pasta, it was very nice.

We spent the evening reading and listening to the radio. Although we were on the N432 the traffic noise wasn't bad but the hotel walls were thin and the person in the next room could be heard quite clearly talking on his phone. It was quiet later and we had a good night's sleep again.