Passed a lovely night, as planned, in Ustaritz, chez Natalia (see Gronze). I recommend her place, though if you are not find of cats as I happen to be you might not appreciate the charming companion calico greeter.
Leaving this morning and getting to Souraide was reasonably easy but the wooded path to Souraide looked very overgrown and was not signed, so I stuck to the D88 roadway. Unlike the roads in Spain, it was quite busy and a bit addling as a result.
Therefore, when I left Souraide and followed the camino signs, I did as I was instructed both by a local farmer (stay to the ascents and do not go down!) and the Chemin St, Jacques signs… and the YELLOW X “NO” indicators but ended up on the road to Hendaye, not the Baztan at all. There are no freaking signs for the Baztan… so I made my own route, 21K from start to finish, but not at Urdax as planned and rather only as far as Ainhoa.
People keep saying “oh, it’s well signed” but the Baztan to Pamplona is *not* well-signed. Perhaps if I had taken the Esplette detour it would have been better? But I did not want the extra KM on my day.
Many of the camino signs indicate a nearby town, but are not indicating a route (eg: in the direction of Hendaye!!). If you are trying to navigate on a phone, that nearby town might not show up until you are so magnified that it’s unclear if it’s anywhere near to where you are hoping to get next.
Gronze maps are very very general, and my paper guidebook is so chatty as to be *annoying* (it’s 9 years old now and who *knows* if there’s a sign between two branches in an old oak tree somewhere. The author seems to have a very different understanding of what the phrase “to the right of the chapel” might mean also as I had to cross the road and make a hard left to arrive at the putative entry to the wooded path. I even walked back to the chapel to look for a path to the right. I guess the path is to the right *IF* you have your back to the entry of the chapel… But oy…. My mother, who was famous for getting lost, gave better directions.
I managed to get myself to a safe bed… but if I were unable to stretch my budget I would be in trouble. There is no pilgrim accommodation in Ainhoa, and the charming hotels here are not cheap. It’s fine for me, but it could leave another person really pummeled.