Day Twelve

Andorra: Pal

Wednesday 16th July



We awoke as the sun began to illuminate the valley, not a cloud in the sky, we headed out from our camp site for a hike. We had planned a route along a yellow marked path that originated over the river and up one side of the valley from our camp. We headed out and it wasn’t long before our hearts where pounding as the oxygen levels at one and a half thousand meters above see level thinned. We clambered up the steep gradient over a mixture of granite extrusions, deciduous trees and pine forest. Every now and again, through a clearing in the trees, we were treated to a peek of the valley and the other side of the mountain as we made are way onwards, and upwards. Our route was littered with wild orchids, 3 distinctive varieties, as well as many other alpine flora and fauna. We reached the top of the mountain to be stunned at the view that opened up, snow capped mountains framing a picture postcard vista.

As we made our way back down the other side of the mountain it became clear that we may be able to turn the route into a circular hike. We trekked on down the other side of the hill like mountain goats, expecting to bump into Heidi and Peter!

Those dreams were soon to be shattered as two mountain bikes came hurtling down the mountain at us. It was a lucky escape as we jumped aside. We had figured we might be on a mountain bike route the tracks on the floor a give away sign, but it wasn’t obvious that the marked path had become a shared mountain bike route. In a smattering of seconds, with flint stones flying into the air, the bikes disappeared on down the mountain leaving us with an uneasy feeling as we trekked on down the remainder of the mountain, constantly looking behind us, wary of further encounters with high speed mountain bikers.

Our hike continued on in safety, fortunately not a busy mountain bike route and we hiked on round the valley floors returning to our campsite, exhausted but exhilarated it has been a superb hike. We celebrated our ‘butch’ achievement with a late lunch, cracking open a bottle of sparkling Blanquette Limoux we had picked up in the Alet les Bain. As the sun shone we swam in the campsite swimming pool in the late afternoon sun. Definitely the most scenic swimming pool we had ever swum in. Again that evening we cooked and drank our way through another evening as we fell in love with the mountain landscape surrounding us.