We went to Andorra with the plan to conquer its highest mountain Coma Pedrosa. First, when we arrived, we right away noticed the difference in temperature with Spain. It was much much cooler. For the first night, we found a camping near La Mansana. It was quite pricey, but not also overly expensive as we had seen in France and Spain. The camping venue had a swimming pool and good WiFi. So we basically spent the day at the poolside. Jaanus was fixing the blog (as you have noticed, it has a new theme) and I was making contacts over CouchSurfing to find us a place to stay in Porto for the upcoming week. Although it was good weather, after 5 pm, it was already too cold to sit by the pool. The climate is different in high mountains!
We took some time to prepare for the upcoming day and the hike to Coma Pedrosa. We found an information center where we got a map with all the hiking trails in the area and the guy working there also took the time to explain to us why the gasoline is so cheap in Andorra 🙂 The taxes are just so low.
We saw also horses being prepared to ride up the mountain. It seemed that it is also a popular attraction for people who are not up to hiking themselves but still want to see the amazing view from the mountains. We learned that a horse riding trip would cost 40 Eur per person. Although both of us love horseback riding, we thought that this was a little too much for our budget. But one day if we come back and are not fit enough to hike ourselves, then certainly we will try it.
Having prepared the sandwiches and packed the bags, we went to sleep quite early with the plan to also wake up early enough. For the first time, we experienced that it was a little too cold to sleep in the car.
About our hiking to Coma Pedrosa, you can read from our separate blog post by clicking here.
When we arrived back from the mountains, we drove to another camping site. We were both so exhausted that we just managed to have a hot shower, eat a little and fall asleep. This time Jaanus was especially glad that he just had bought sleeping bags from Decathlon in Spain. The night was cold again, but with the sleeping bag, it was much more tolerable.
Since our plans for the upcoming days were not quite agreed yet, we slept in the next day as well. We were hanging around the camping site, made use of the great WiFi again and posted some amazing pictures from the previous day. At the camping site, we also met some Germans. For Kaija, it was great to practice her German again. They were road tripping with all family and one of the daughters was collecting coins and she did not have any from Estonia yet so we gave them some. The family was super nice and we exchanged contacts so they could follow our future adventures and if they ever come to Estonia, we could show them around.
We decided that we will also do some shopping in Andorra since the prices seemed to be quite low. When we arrived at the supermarket, we saw that the priced were indeed low, but mostly for alcohol. For example
It was the first time both of us had seen a 5 liter plastic jar of 96% alcohol. The price of it was 11 euros. Almost half of the supermarket was occupied by alcohol shelves.
All the jamón ibéricos were also much cheaper than the ones sold in Spain
And they were even selling
We planned to finish shopping before the rush hour at the border. So early afternoon we already took the direction toward Madrid.
To summarize, Andorra was quite surprising for us – fairly cheap camping, extremely cheap gasoline and alcohol, very good free WiFi access almost everywhere and the most wonderful nature to explore. Certainly a place worth a visit to hike in the Pyrenees.
