Spain - Day 29: Baiau to Arans

The moon

We woke still happy.

It had been cold outside but hot sweaty and humid inside. Condensed breath dripped from the walls. But we didn't care. We ate, dressed in almost everything we had. But still shorts. It was cold outside. The small ponds outside the refugi were frozen solid with a scattering of snow flake(s) on them.


The views were still amazing. Actually better.

I said it was cold

Packing

People left in dribs and drabs. Then came our turn to drip or drab. We said our goodbyes and out we went. We walked then had to stop to photo the lake to death.

Marta - a Spanish lady staying at the refugi too passed us and went off up the steep climb to the col. She was younger, fitter and carrying less than we were. And took less photos. having lost her phone or something.


We followed her up the slope

The lake

The path for once was pretty poorly marked, but Marta was going the same way as us. So up we went. Spotting the red and white marks as we went up. Today would be our last day in Spain for a while. Today, we would enter Andorra and then spend a few days trekking across Andorra.

Silhouette d' Marta 

 We liked the silhouette game. It broke the effort of the up.

Silhouette de le family

It had snowed more up here but not very much luckily. The odd rock, and maybe some normal ones were 'dusted' with snow. But snow none-the-less.

Snow

Ellie and Martin

Were high and there was more snow. But this stuff, probably left over from the ice age, a bit older. But, we stood on it to pose, it was summer snow after all.

Nora

The up went on for a surprising long time. Probably because we kept stopping to take pictures.

The col, the aptly named, Portella de Baiau (2757m) gave us our first glimpse of Andorra. It looked steep. In fact Andorra doesn't have a proper airport it is so mountainous.

More lakes of course. The mountains around here seems full of them. Must have been a job lot from somewhere.

More lakes

The descent into this green and verdant land was a bit tricky. We noted that the GR11 signs had changed to GR11.1 but we all silently figured that it was another country so - just a slightly different signage. Marta was ahead of us and ahead of her we could see the Spanish couple with the dog who were also going to the same place.

So we just followed.

Flat Andorra

There is mountain saying - Don't follow anybody. Because it's you that will get lost. Not them.

This turned out not to be 100% true as both Marta and we were lost.

We caught up to Marta at a refugi, we had been expecting a refugi so we were happy. Marta was deep in conversation, in English, with a young man both pointing animatedly at the map laid out on the rock.

I interrupted to tell her of the silhouette picture and get an email so I could send it to her. And that is when she told us that we were lost. We weren't where we thought we were. It seems that we had all blindly followed the wrong track. But it turned out to be a shorter track, than originally planned, which leads to the same destination. So obviously the saying should read.

'Follow anyone. You will get there quicker'.

While I talked to Marta, the family talked to the other three guys. In English. Then one of the guys said 'three' and my son spotted they were Slovak. As are the family. So the conversation switched to Slovak. Leaving Marta and I lost. The hard alcohol appeared from nowhere. A traditional Slovak greeting. The normal stuff. Then Grandma's stuff.

Empty track

Andorra is infinitely civilised. The tracks are well maintained and empty.

We found a supermarket and ate, when the restaurants finally started selling food, that is. We ordered almost everything on the menu. The waiter commented that he we had ordered... maybe too much. We know we responded - we are hungry.

He was right in the end - but just.

Typical Andorran cloud

Home again

We left Arinsal and walked to Arans. Where we looked for accommodation but it was full. The ladies did get a tour of a beautifully restored house, but it was full and prohibitively expensive.

We camped in the wild with Marta and Mr. Gruber not too far away,

We had a disco going somewhere below us. The music didn't keep us awake for long.

We were probably breaking the law by camping here too.

Que sera sera.