Andorra

The Principality of Andorra is all of 181 square miles.  For comparison sake, the city of Albuquerque, Mexico takes up a little over 189 square miles.  Population wise Andorra's is about the same as that of Lynchburg Virginia. (Upper 70,000's).

It is governed equally by two individuals - the President of France and the Spanish Archbishop of Urgell .  For their services Andorra sends them each a few hams and wine plus other stuff each year.  Would I make something like that up?

Andorra is only about a four hour drive from the village in Corbiere where I was staying.  Web pages extolled Andorra's wonderful hiking opportunities. That was enough right there to convince me to come.

So, after a four hour trip in the car, of which the last two hours were a dizzying uphill slalom, I reached the border of the Principality. 

What was supposed to be another half hour drive to Piso Soldeu and my waiting apartment turned into a version of 'you can't get there from here'.

While I was still in Corbiere my host sent me info on both where to pick up the keys and the apartment's location, (we communicated on WhatsApp).  Needless to say when I got to Andorra neither bit of information was helpful.  To exacerbate the problem I needed Wi-Fi to use WhatsApp to communicate with him which I did not have.  

After a frustrating hour and a half of driving around unsuccessfully trying to find it I had a chance encounter with a young lady who took pity on me.

She called my host who explained where the keys were located (it turned out to be an auto dealership).  He sent her photos of what the apartment building looked like and signs of businesses along the way I should look for to guide me there.  The only way I located the building was from a photo I took of a photo he had sent her.  Well, anyway, the apartment is very nice.

And, an incredible thanks to you 'Sara Andorra' wherever you may be.  Without you I would still be wandering around looking for my apartment. 

My hiking in the Corbiere area had netted me about 50  miles.  So I was feeling confident to tackle Andorra.  The day after I arrived here  I located a national park about 40 minutes away from my condo, drove there, paid one Euro for a trail map and off I went. 

Forty minutes and 1.3 miles later (Strava is a great app for keeping track) I was exhausted.  I couldn't understand why.  Reluctantly I made my way back down to my rental car.

Altitude turned out to be the culprit.  The villages where I hiked in Languedoc sat at about 500-650 feet altitude.  The spot where I turned around day before yesterday in the Andorran national park was about 6,500 feet.  I had put on about 800 feet of that in my 1.3 mile trek up the mountain.

My condo here in Piso Soldeu is a little over a mile high so I have started paying close attention to the elevation changes of the hikes I undertake.  

I remember attending a seminar years ago.  One presenter kept using the phrase during his presentation 'your attitude determines you altitude'.  Well, also, 'your altitude determines your attitude'

Here's a photo from my hike yesterday.

And here is one of the intrepid hiker