Climb every mountain…….”but do I have to”, said Laura
We woke up from our last sleep in Spain, had our last shower in Spain, did a quick last shop in Spain; we knew the Mercadona Supermarket sold pasteis de nata and very good cherries. It feels like we’ve seen so many facets and assets of Spain. The country has given us much joy and I think we can happily feel we have ‘ticked the box’.
Finally we headed a short distance north to leave Spain for the 5th and last time……through a building. We entered Andorra’s border control, which was a jumble of booths containing computer screens with, all but one, devoid of humans. There were plenty of Policia standing around, but no-one was stopped and we slowly followed the cars in front, into a new country for both of us.
Andorra seems to consist of one long narrow valley and a few side valleys, all set within steep-sided mountains, but as we drove through the first town of Sant Julià de Lòria, we seemed to be also surrounded by shops; endless shops. We didn’t notice a break between there and the capitol, Andorra La Vella. Shopping centre, after shopping centre, but we ignored them all and kept driving north until we found a junction with signs to Ordino and El Serrat. The road led through the three-kilometre long Dos Valires Tunnel and popped out at La Massana, from there we followed the Valira del Nord, through Ordino, Llorts and El Serrat up to the very end of the road at Coma d’Arcalis.
The views all the way up were good, but at the top they were spectacular. There was still a lot of snow around, waterfalls cascaded down the sides of the mountains, the sky was brilliant blue and Rodney was happy to be there. A chair-lift was running when we parked Eileen, so we made plans to get the lift up to a peak and then walk down. Unfortunately it turned out to be a tease. The chairlift was being maintained and tested, it wasn’t open for rides. So we walked up. On the edge of the bowl, we could look back down on the ski resort and as we stepped over the top, a whole another valley opened up in front of us.
It really was stunning wandering around above the tree-line, with snow-capped mountains and three deep blue lakes, one still partially frozen. We thought we were following the Circuit Glacial de Tristaina, but soon realised we weren’t. We wandered around taking endless photos of every angle of the landscape and sliding across the piles of snow that covered so many of the tracks. It was a wonderful three and a half hours.
At 4:30pm we checked in to Camping Valira, back on the southern end of Andorra La Vella. We found a nice spot under trees with a glimpse of a view of the mountains opposite. Well we had a view, until a couple of Austrians arrived in a bigger van and blocked the scene, ah well they have it now. Andorra has its own telecommunications company, so our Spanish and our French sim cards wouldn’t work, despite being so close to both borders. But then the campsite gave us free wi-fi, so that was all good. Rodney cooked up some chicken and rice, after spending ages trying to sort out the electricity; too complicated to go into all that here. Then he took the computer to the Germans opposite us to show them our photos of today. It’s now on their agenda for tomorrow and we’ll investigate the old town and maybe just a couple of duty free shops…..
And on Friday they did shop, although not all day. In the morning I spent twenty minutes non-stop swimming in the indoor heated pool, while Rodney got the washing done in the Bugaderia…. So we didn’t actually start the twenty minute walk in to town until 1pm. There wasn’t much about the Centro Historic that looked old; there were just so many new buildings. We drifted slowly along the Avenguda Meritxell and that’s when the shopping began. We bought a huge Toblerone, a bottle of Bacardi, we both bought new clothes and yes, the prices are much cheaper in Andorra.
Worn out and weary, we staggered back to the campsite, because every restaurant in town seemed to be on Spanish time. We had hoped for a bit of French or ‘Tourist’ influence, but no it was 8:30pm opening, or a choice of three McDonalds. “Don’t worry” I said, “the campsite restaurant is open from 8am to 11pm; it doesn’t shut all day”. So we dropped off our bags in Eileen and flopped on to stools at the campsite bar. We ordered drinks and then, while struggling to translate the Catalan menu, the barman said “no orders until 8pm”. Dang! When the food did arrive, we had a strange plate covered in some meat, chips, potato croquettes, rice covered in tomato sauce, a fried egg and a sort of cold potato salad with bits of beans and carrots mixed in. A very strange combination, but hey, it was edible and we were hungry.
The campsite restaurant is set high up, with views over the southern end of Andorra La Vella and the athletic stadium. Just after we left the restaurant, some uniformed military men set the balcony up as a vantage point, with their guns out and aimed at goodness knows where or what. Apparently the first minister of France was about to leave town and he was in one of the two grey helicopters that took off from the stadium and hovered over us. Now I thought that was exciting, but…….!
At 3:04am we were woken by a loud bang and then, what Rodney described as a snap, crackle and pop, but I thought it was more of a whooshing and a cracking. He dismissed it as locals setting off fire crackers and then amended his opinion to night workmen with a concrete mixer. None of this seemed right to me, so I pulled down the blind and peeked out to see a sight I didn’t expect. The two campervans next to us were leaving and behind us, only fifty-metres away there was a huge fire burning. The bright orange flames were leaping in to the dark sky and there were only a couple of small trees between us and the flames. We leapt out of bed, threw some clothes on and while Rodney pulled in the awning, faster than he’s ever done before, I threw chairs, table, anything and everything onto the bed. By now all the other sleepy campers had woken up and wandered down towards us. Strangely we didn’t move, we all just stood outside and watched, while trying to decide what we should do. We never heard any sirens and no-one seemed to be giving any directions, but when something exploded, I screamed, a few police arrived and moved everyone further away, curiously down wind of the flames. I thought Rodney was moving Eileen, but he was moved away too and I did feel a sense of panic that we might lose her. With me now in a bit of a tiz, Rodney asked one of the officers, who could see we were both concerned about Eileen, if he could move her further away, and they finally agreed. So he drove her up to the very far end of the campsite, up wind and walked back to join us where we were told to stay near the stadium. We all milled around for ages, and we were both rather cold standing around in the summer clothes we had stupidly grabbed. I think the police noticed that some of us were rather underdressed and they managed to source a big pile of warm blankets and we grabbed one each, found a wall, and sat down to watch the flames slowly dying down under the water of the firemen’s hoses. Finally, at 5am the police said we could all go back to our campervans, tents and caravans. Our electric cable and waste tank were still where we were originally parked, so in the dark, Rodney did an ace job of manoeuvring quietly back through the campsite and straight on to our levellers. We threw everything on the floor and jumped back in to bed with frozen feet and then, of course, couldn’t get back to sleep for quite a while. I woke up around 9am and initially wondered if it had all been a nightmare.
When Rodney went down to collect our breakfast baguette, he checked out the remains of the fire and discovered that it was actually only a small area, with the charred remains of a few stored caravans. We were sure it was the garage/ car workshop next to the campsite entrance that had gone up and I have to say, the firemen did a darn good job of keeping it contained to there. None of the campsite buildings were burnt, although some windows at the end of the swimming pool are cracked and the garage has a scorched corner on its roof, but that’s all. Phew.
It was hard to get going in the morning and we had a bit of a mess to clear up, having moved Eileen without shutting all the cupboards. Amazingly a ceramic bowl full of cherries somehow stayed on top of the cooker and didn’t look like it had moved! We packed everything away and then went for a drive up into the mountains behind us. We followed the winding CS101 up and down and up again, through the villages of La Comella, Escaldes, La Plana and Engolasters, until the road finally ended at a car park. From there we followed a footpath along the side of the shimmering Lac D’Engolasters. It only took us fifteen minutes, not far enough for Rodney, so we continued along a path through the trees to a viewpoint over the town of Encamp and the main road through to France.
We stopped for our picnic lunch on the way back around the other side of the lake and then finished the walk by strolling across the top of the dam and back to Eileen. Back at the campsite, we both went for a swim in the pool, chilled out in the jacuzzi, and then fell asleep on the sun-loungers outside. Hopefully tonight won’t be quite as exciting and we’ll get a good night’s sleep.
