Andorra, the lesser known heaven

Mountains and Lakes mark the landscape of Andorra

A vacation for me always has to have a beautiful picture. There must be atleast one that I can just print and hang on a wall. Such a requirement puts a high pressure in selecting a place. When the week long visit to Toulouse finalized, I had exactly one such pressure. I needed to plan a trip somewhere close to Toulouse. A trip that can provide me with amazing experiences but still short in time. The obvious choice was to look at Google maps and place a point. Andorra, a small land locked country between France and Spain.

Beautiful streams and meadows are also a common sight

  If I were to sum up Andorra in two words, mountains and lakes. The country has a picturesque landscape. Even a random image captured in some direction aligning the horizon horizontally would lead to an amazing landscape picture. So the opportunities were umpteen, the places were amazing and the paths challenging. There was only one problem, I had limited time.

And another good thing making Andorra a hiker's heaven is the existence of mountain huts. They call them Refugis, the huts provide a stable shelter against all weather conditions. Most of them even have wood for lighting fire to heat or cook. And anybody is free to stay in them. All one needs to carry is a nice sleeping bag. So ideally the best thing to do in Andorra is to visit all the refugis. One can even get a "passport" from the tourist office and fill it with stamps from all the huts.

 

Reflection of sun light from clouds

Owing to my limited time, I organised my hikes as two per day. One starting crazy in the morning and the other during afternoon. I reached  El Tarter late at night and went straight to the hostel. An interesting anecdote here worth mentioning, when I reached the hostel, there was a guy making his dinner. So I started small talk, he is from Australia. And he mentioned that he planned a trip to a lake for the entire day. I thought about it and said, "i dont have time for doing it the whole day, I am doing it early in the morning and come back before breakfast. You can join me if you want." Considering the fact that the discussion was at midnight and the plan is to start at 4 AM, any sane person would skip it. He said yes!

So, the first plan was to go up to Estanys de Juclar. A small hike with a total length of 9 KM and an elevation gain of approximately 450 m lead us to a beautiful lake. The lake itself is at a height of 2250m. An early morning hike allowed me to capture some really great images, one is of the clouds reflecting the light from rising sun, the other is from the lake itself.

Estany de Juclar

Then I headed towards Arinsal, where i started walking up to tick Coma Pedrosa - the highest peak in Andorra. Arinsal lies at an elevation of 1470m and the peak itself is at 2943m. So me assuming that I can do the peak and come back to the hut on the first day for an afternoon hike proved to be an impossible task. Instead, I ended up at the refugi coma pedrosa at 2265m and played with dogs for the evening.

From the top of Coma Pedrosa, highest peak in Andorra

I had some of the really great interactions here. The hut is run by an old lady who knew a lot of languages and things. She was charming and liked me for some reason - leading to special treatment at the hut. I met a really nice family from catalunya, a couple with two lovely daughters. Early morning next day I ventured up the peak alone. The hike up was slightly hard. After the peak I headed towards the capital city - Andorra la vella. The city did not impress me, largely because of its emphasis as a tax-free shopping city rather than a cozy capital of a beautiful nation.

Lakes from top of a ridge

  The afternoon hike was to complete as much as possible towards Estany de l'illa. The problem was that it was too much to do up the peak and all the way down to the city in the morning, then start with another hike. Luckily the slope was gradual, but I didnt realize the length of the hike. So I stopped at Refugi Riu dels Orris, also because it started raining a little and I was tired. I gained a bit over 1200 m during the afternoon hike. So I had my food and hit the bed early.

The next day's hike is a bit relaxed, as I just needed to get back to Tarter and finish my trip. But the path is over a high mountain range - around 2800m. The view from up there was incredible. The image shows the lakes below when seen from the top of the range. Then more lakes lied on the other side. After returning to Tarter, I took the bus back to Toulouse. But in all the country is amazing for hiking. All the paths are well marked, no wild animals and quite friendly people.

More Pictures :

Flowers

Flowers

Estany de Juclar

Signs marking the paths