The Quiet Side of Andorra

The town of Soldeu, which was to be the launching stage for my hike the next day, was worlds apart from Andorra la Vella even though it was only 20 km away. It was a ski-town, and appeared rather sleepy in the summer. What struck me most about it was the prevalence of English-language signs and the number of British people around. The hostel was run by a British family, most of the patrons were Brits, and Nick, the owner, played in a small band at a bar that night for a predominantly British audience singing English-language songs. Apparently, there is some tension there between the Brits and the locals and they tend to keep separate from one another.

I was able to escape the local political scene the next morning when I followed a small valley road to the trailhed recommended by Nick, who is an expert hiker himself. The trail itself went from about 1920 to 2940 meters as it quickly left the tree-line behind and climbed a rocky mountaintop past some spectacular streams and alpine lakes. My pictures will tell a better story of the scenery once I finally get them uploaded. I surprised myself by completing the hike without too much difficulty, despite the rather large elevation changes. The grade was relatively steady throughout, though, and I was not carrying much besides water, my camera, a windbreaker and some food. There were two or three other trails that criss-crossed the area, and I took one of them to create a loop and return to the parking lot from a different direction than I the one I left from. During the entire day I probably met about a dozen other hikers, all of them day-hikers like me, even though one of the routes I was on was the Grand Route Pyrenees, which crosses the Pyrenees length-wise and probably takes a month to complete.