This may have been my most challenging day of the whole hike. It started off so pleasant as I walked a pair of Germans I had met the night before, but right off the bat we took a wrong turn. As I regaled the woes and story of my life, they kept second guessing the amount of descent that we were undertaking, and I scoffed a little and didn’t think much of it (we were doing two separate hikes that overlapped for a bit). Eventually they split off and headed back uphill to join their track, and this would be some very poignant foreshadowing for me.
It was an absolute scorcher of a day, and I was so thrilled to be descending into a lovely little village. I then had some difficulty figuring out where to go, and finally pulled out my maps. I wasn’t supposed to be in a cute little village right now, and the trek definitely wasn’t supposed to descend this much! I cross referenced with Gaia GPS and I was way, way off where I was supposed to be. Well, not too far off, but with the elevation gain required with the heat of the midday sun, I was screwed.
