With time disappearing quickly through our fingers, Natalie and I were only able to spend a day in Andorra. This time was marked by the following four impressions.
- Andorra would be a beautiful place to spend the summer hiking/biking. It would also be a superb place to spend the winter skiing/snowboarding. Although the fall in Andorra is excellent, it is not really the best time to be there as the snow has not arrived and it is a bit cold for hiking (unless of course you bring the proper gear).
- Andorra is a ski nation. This tiny nation (2.5 time smaller than Paris, France) has created an entire economy around snow sports. It is really something to see.
- Drunk people can be difficult to deal with when you do not speak their language. 2 drunk 20 something year old boys decided that 3:00 am was a good time to be extremely loud outside of our hotel room door. I had quite a few words with them, but I am pretty sure they were mostly making fun of me as I was the only person who appeared to think that their behavior constituted an issue. They left. Eventually.
- Andorra has some high quality spring water. Natalie and I were in the village of Arsinal, when a van pulled up to the local spring (water pouring out a of bricked in wall like area beside the road) and opened their back doors. Inside, were roughly 100 one gallon jugs which they began to systematically fill up and load back into the van. I drew a few possible conclusions from this.(1) They do not have running water and must manually bring water to where they live. Although this is possible, it seems likely that they would have, long before buying the van, figured out how to get running water into their abode. (2) Their water is full of sulfur and they need to water to keep from overloading their bodies with sulfur. Also improbable based on the reason previously explained. (3) The are bottling the water and selling it for a profit. I like this concept, but if this is the case, their operation is so slow there is no way they are making enough money to pay for the gas in that van. (4) The spring outside of our hotel is actually the fountain of eternal youth and these old Andorrans were getting their yearly supply of immortality.
Overall, our time in Andorra was positive if not a bit perplexing. For example, Spain has a customs check for all motorized transport out of Andorra. Interestingly, this appears to be an exercise for the motorists. Each motorist is required to park, turn off the car, get out and open the trunk. This accomplished, a customs official looks in the car for .0056 seconds, before declaring the car “fine”. The motorist closes the trunk and zooms happily away, with 500 kilos of Andorran cocaine safely packed inside Osprey backpacks. (Disclaimer: I am not importing or export cocaine from/to Andorra or any other nation.)
Catalan
The Northeast section of Spain contains a province or state referred to as Catalan. They have their own language, Catalan, which is an unfathomable mixture of Spanish and French, with a bit of Italian through in here and there for good measure. It is my understanding that no one speaks Catalan outside of the Autonomous State of Catalan (I asked a local if Spain is divided into states or provinces and he told me they are called Autonomous States.) and the country of Andorra. I speak a smattering of Spanish which is about enough to get around a Spanish speaking country. Catalan is defiantly not Spanish and, although getting around was not difficult, I was not able to refresh my Spanish.
Spanish Driving.
Spanish drivers are….polite. This was a difficult change for me as driving in Italy is a survival of the fittest routine. Spanish drivers stop when a pedestrian is standing on the sidewalk waiting to use a cross walk. In Italy, people don’t use cross walks and I almost caused an accident by crossing the street outside a cross walk. Seriously. I felt bad. This politeness took some getting used to and I am afraid that I failed to stop for many pedestrians as they calmly waited to use the cross walk. Lesson learned. When driving in other countries, never assume that you are in Italy.
This post caught my eye because I remember driving in Spain and wondering where all the roads went. It’s been a couple of years since my wife and I traveled there, but the maps were full of new roads that simply didn’t exist.
Not to mention that the roads that did exist were still being constructed (Andalucia especially).
Happy trails.
P.S. Found you through One Giant Step.