We thought our luck had started to turn when we found a map in the town that actually had the GR-105 marked on it. We couldn't believe it, the first bit of actual information about this route. From where we were we determined the easiest way was to follow the GR-109 out of town which eventually bisected with the 105 about 5 or km from the town. This was the first morning we actually left with the feeling that we knew exactly what we were doing and where we were going. Funny then that it ended up being the day where we got the most lost. The destination for the end of the day was a small town called Cangas de Onis. The time we were on the GR-109 was fine. A nice walk. Quite a lot uphill into the mountains behind Infiesto, but nothing particularly difficult. It's when we came across a sign with the 109 going one way and then 105 going another that everything started to quickly go wrong.

The GR-109 seem to continue on quite easy. The 105 on the other hand went straight up. Up a steep rocky path into the fog which really should have been the point we decided to turn back. But we didn't, we continued on. It took all of about 10 minutes before we started to get lost. The path just disappeared into a open field. A bit of hunting around and we eventually did find the path again, climbing further and further up. By the time we reached what we thought at the time was the top, the fog was so thick we could only see like 15m. The walk from here took it fairly easy (relatively speaking) for a while, before coming to an area with the remains of a house and paddock (seriously don't know who could have possibly lived out here) where the markings again disappeared. After searching for about half an hour or so in several directions we finally decided to give up and head down to a river we found heading east and follow it to wherever it ended up (hopefully a road). Getting down to the river was harder than we anticipated and when we finally did and followed it for about 15 minutes we somehow managed to find the markings again heading back up off to the side. Apparently going through the river was the path.

At this point we were seriously considering whether to continue just following the river or actually going back on to the route. Had we known what was ahead we certainly wouldn't have picked going back on to the route. But we did and now I have this awesome story to tell. The trail from here just went completely nuts. From disappearing and reappearing at times to completely impassable muddy areas to seemingly impassable muddy areas that we had no choice but to pass. It was horrible, exhausting and we just wanted it to me over. Unfortunately the worst was to come. Eventually we reached another house and paddock. This one however with actual horses in it and the house looking in very good condition. It was here we lost the markings again. And with visibility now only being like 5m and the area we were in being large and open it was very tough to find it. After a while of looking we believed we had found it around the side of the house and followed it. After about half an hour though of following what seemed like a path along the side of the hill the path kinda disappeared. Everything here was burnt. So what originally seemed like a flat bit along the side of the hill was now just one of dozens of flat bits along there were burnt shrubs used to be.

It was too late to turn back at this point, and even if we did have time the terrain we had needed to pass to get here just wasn't something we wanted to go back through. So we just kept walking. We knew we needed to be going east, and we were, so we at least had that going for us. We were however up a mountain with no idea if we could follow it down or if we would just circle it or what. We now had absolutely no idea whatsoever where the trail was. So after doing this for a while we fell back to our previous plan. That was to follow a river which we could hear down the bottom. Getting to this river made getting to the other river seem easy. This one was a grueling hour or more of very carefully navigating down a very steep hill. And when we did eventually get to the bottom walking along the river proved to be even harder. After trying it for about half an hour and making very little progress we just gave up and walked literally through the river which varied from ankle deep to about knee deep and freezing cold.

For about 2 hours we walked through this river which did eventually lead to a road to our absolute relief. Along the way we got a bunch of scratches and bruises. Ness in particular got an amazing one on her thigh after falling into a branch. A bruise bigger than my fist which lasted about 2 weeks. I managed to slip and get my foot stuck under a rock in the water which resulted in an absolutely terrifying 2 or 3 minutes (well it felt that long anyway, was probably like 30 seconds) until, with Ness's I managed to get my foot free of my shoe and then retrieve the shoe. It was getting quite dark when we reached the road and I tell you, there were definitely moments along that trek that I was starting to get seriously worried that it was going to be a very cold and uncomfortable night.

But the fun wasn't over yet. Oh no. We followed this road for a while until we ran into a guy with a van. After trying to speak to him for a while and getting nowhere he left and we kept on walking. Then we reached a small village where that same man was talking to another man by his van. And again after trying to tell them what we wanted they pointed in a direction which was the opposite of they way we're going to go and after half an hour turned out to actually be the opposite way that we needed to go. So thanks for f***ing nothing dickheads. The very definition of less than useless right there. Very literally were less useful than if they had told us nothing.

So when we did actually go the right way and found the more main road we were looking for would you believe we managed to get a hitch in that very same van from the guys wife. She dropped us off in the nearest town and from there we managed to get another hitch from a super super friendly family into Cangas de Onis which is exactly where we wanted to go. They even called around some hotels for us and found a cheap place with rooms available and dropped us off at the door. Seemed we were getting the full range of helpfulness today.

We ended up staying in Cangas de Onis for 3 nights. It was a lovely little town. It had the mountains right behind it and an awesome old bridge and a bunch of great pubs. It also had a laundromat and a barber, so we got some washing done and I got a haircut and shave which was long overdue. Ness went to the tourist office while I was doing this and they were actually extremely helpful and knew quite about the GR we were doing and how s*** it was marked. Wish someone at the start of the route could have told us that.

After having our fill of Cangas de Onis we planned to actually finish the GR-105 to Covadonga as from here it was apparently a fairly easy 10km walk. The weather however was pretty crap so we decided to just take the bus. Covadonga is basically famous for its awesome cathedral overlooking the tiny town (it basically consists of 5 restaurants and 10 hotels) and the even more awesome chapel built into the side of a cliff. We spent one night here which ended up with us drinking 5 bottles of wine and getting stupidly drunk. The next day when we went back to Cangas de Onis (only place to get a bus onto our next destination) it turned out the tourist info lady wasn't actually as helpful as we originally thought. The bus which we thought we'd need to wait 2 hours for didn't exist and the next was actually 8 hours away. We tried in vain to wait for it but after about 3 hours gave up and booked back into our previous hotel and slept all day. But this was the end of the GR-105 which it's probably fair to say got the better of us.