DAY 154

Monday 12 December 2011

We took pictures with the Santa in the Andorran mall

It was long haul to get to our 23rd country, Andorra, and then back to Valencia by early evening. We woke early and pulled out of Ripolli by 7:30 AM, still dark. Nicole crashed in the back while Dian and Charles enjoyed the breaking dawn. We were taking a risk that the detour to Andorra wouldn't be just to add another notch to our Countries Visited belt, but also a chance to see some worthwhile Spanish countryside we would otherwise miss.

Charles chose, last minute, a southern route, paralleling the Andorran border with Spain (France is on the north). The "normal" route would take you up through a piece of France then through what looked like, on the map, two very long tunnels. To him that translated to maybe a stiff toll to go through or the option to go the old way through incredibly twisting mountain roads then all the way through the middle of the small country and out the west side. Who needed that? No one said Andorra is beautiful, and it was mostly known for massive malls with duty-free cheap prices. Yes, a shopping destination. In the old days it was significant, and in fact Spanish music people used to go there to get discs they couldn't find under the Franco regime (and would have to smuggle them in).

We will now take the opportunity to show you all the Dian-Santa pictures we took during this holiday season

Our gamble paid off with some gorgeous scenery. We started climbing higher and higher and got into ski resort country, beautiful but a little scary driving with those white-capped mountains looming ahead. There was a brief stretch of road we took very slowly, with many caution signs about icy roads ("black ice," Nicole warned, "you can't see it on asphalt"), but that was a short stretch and we started descending but not before coming across an unusual sight: snow-making towers, a dozen or more right by the road, then all the way up the ski path to the mountain top. In the Pyrenees, in December, and they're having to manufacture the snow slopes. For shame. (But we were happy we didn't have to drive through the real thing.)

When we reached the Andorran border we were tempted to go in and u-turn back (the car ahead of us did that) but decided to go to the first village -- Sant Julia de Loria seemingly quaintly-named, but it was just an excuse for a large shopping mall. We pulled in and got a few supplies (should've stocked up, prices were so cheap) and gas/diesel at 1.14 Euro/liter, the lowest we'd seen by far -- translated to $1.75/gallon less than the most expensive fuel we'd had to buy (probably Switzerland).

We dashed across the busy highway for photo ops by the Andorra sign, then took off for good ol' Spain again. Had to stop at the border -- rare, and they inspected everyone's trunk -- that never happened before. Leftover from Franco days? Or keeping people from bring vanloads of cheap scotch back for resale -- more likely.

The drive south was pretty in parts but not overall the best we'd seen. Arriving finally after 11 hours of driving, we were so glad to meet Don and unload our stuff into his place, where he'd generously invited us to stay from 15-30 December when he'd be back the States. We had dinner of his veggies and our couscous, satisfying and healthy-tasting. The ladies were asleep by 11, but Charles was almost as nocturnal as Don and so they had to chat a bit into the early hours.