Right from the start on the second day we had another hurdle. It was a hurdle similar to the first day. We had to re-find the route. We again got some very vague direction from the tourist info centre who didn't really seem to have a whole lot of an idea. But we felt like we were heading in the right direction anyway when we headed off. There were mountains in front of us which we knew we had to get to the other side of. When we reached the base of them we found a walking trail which looked like it passed through a valley which looked like the go. It wasn't our walking trail, but we figured it'd work anyway. It was an incredibly nice walk through a forest by a creek with some old buildings such as mills along the way. But eventually we came to a point where we were no longer really going the way we thought that we should be and we were just getting further and further into the forest and kinda starting to go uphill. We had a decision to make. We chose to go back. On the way back we found a group of hikers (this trail as it turned out was a super popular one for families spending a Sunday together). After quite a long discussion they ended up being about as helpful as everyone else we had asked about this route. By the time we got back to the start this little detour had taken us about 2 hours. And would you believe it, about 10m to the left of the start of this route we found the red and white stripe indication our route.

So we were finally back on track again. Unfortunately our route took us up the 'Zone of Escalation', which basically meant a bunch of steep switchback roads going up the mountain. This was a grueling 2 or so hours and it was sunny and hot. Kinda had us wishing for the s***ty weather we had on the Camino. We were stopping to rest for a few minutes every 10mins or so. It was definitely the toughest bit of walking we had done up until this point. Not far from the top we were lucky to find a fountain which we just completely dunked our heads under. Was a life saver. One thing which had kept us going was a pub. Apparently we were told that there was a pub in the mountains or something. The tourist information centre had said something about a pub along the route, or to turn at a pub or something very vague. We were starting to think it was a myth or we'd missed it or something. But amazing when we got to the top of the mountain there was absolutely nothing but open space for miles.... and one pub. One of the busiest pubs ever. It turns out this area was a very popular Sunday retreat for people doing hiking, cycling, paragliding and all sorts of other activities. We couldn't believe it, the pub even had a pet deer.

On the way down from the mountain we actually started getting some proper GR-105 signs. Like not just red and white stripes painted on a fence, but proper signs with things like 8km to such and such place written on it. Unfortunately the place written on the sign isn't actually the place we had written down as a place to stay. And when we got to the bottom of the other side of the mountain we came to a T intersection with the route going right and the place we wanted to go to, Infiesto, going left, still 8km away. So we started to walk and stick our thumbs out for any passing cars. We had walked about halfway by the time we got picked up. During this time Ness had some up with a little song about how s*** the walk along this road was. It was another 30km+ walk that day at least. The to rub it in, by the time we went out to get something to eat nothing was open. We managed to find one single bar which looked like a little bit of a dive and we ordered a sandwich. Much to our amazement it ended up being one of the best chicken sandwiches ever. Huge, hot and just delicious. We had all but given up on having a decent meal that night, and then this came along and just made everything better. We stayed there 2 nights as we already felt like we needed some recovery. This GR-105 was killing us.