Back on the Road in Andorra

The moment we’ve been waiting for here on Wandering Footsteps has finally arrived: Bruno and I are back on the road.

Our hiatus was slightly longer than planned. Yes, we had family to visit and knee surgery to overcome. But there was a lot more preparation to get back on the road than I’d expected.

While I was in Canada, Bruno took advantage of Totoyaya being unlived-in (a rarity) and grounded in France (an anomaly) to do some much-needed maintenance work. He put in a new ceiling fan and installed a new solar panel. He changed the entry point of our back diesel tank and repaired our side-view mirrors. He installed a 24-volt compressor, reinforced the suspension and improved the insulation in the walls. And he biggest project of all: he tore up our floor. In doing so, he was able to treat some hard-to-reach rust (car cancer) under the chassis, redo some wiring under the floor, and improve the floor’s insulation. Way to go, Bruno!

When I returned to France it was time to do some aesthetic work to our home-on-wheels. We shopped around for a new mattress, searched for better storage receptacles, and fastened a few pictures on the [minimal] wall space. By the time we got around to cleaning the inside of the vehicle and loading everything back into it (a surprisingly long task – we can fit more under the bed than I thought!) it was already early October. Good thing we didn’t have a flight to catch.

Despite our best organizational efforts, the morning of our planned departure was one big chaotic, jumbly mess. All the things we hadn’t needed those last couple of days had been placed in our vehicle with care; but on that final morning we haphazardly threw all the rest of our stuff into cardboard boxes, tossed them on the floor and decided to deal with it later. We were too excited to hit the road to spend the morning carefully loading the vehicle. We departed with butterflies in our stomachs and one messy home in the back!

I experienced an incredible range of emotions over the course of our day of departure. I awoke eager, but that emotion quickly gave way to anxiety at the sight of all those final preparations. I felt awake and giddy on the road. Everything was new again, exciting – from a simple pit-stop near a vineyard to a sunny lunch on the side of the road.

But when we arrived at our first campsite near the border between France and Andorra, my mood plummeted. Icy cold rain had started the moment we arrived, so I went from the passenger seat of the vehicle to our home on the back. I tried to make sense of those boxes we’d thrown into the car that morning, but there seemed to be no space – no space to manoeuver, no space to store things, no space to breathe.

To make matters worse, nothing worked right. Our new mattress was too big, our duvet even bigger, the electrical cord wasn’t bringing electricity to our vehicle, and I couldn’t find a damn thing. I felt claustrophobic, cold, and imprisoned. Hell, I felt depressed and hopeless. I felt alienated by this mini-home I’d always loved. How would I adjust to this tiny space after over three months of living in real houses?

This wasn’t the first day back on the road I’d envisioned.

The next morning, as Bruno and I drove through the Pyrenees, I tried to shake my mood. The leaves of the many trees displayed perfect fall colors, something I hadn’t witnessed in several years. The fog lifted from the hilltops to reveal jagged white rock mountaintops. It was invigorating.

When we crossed the French border into Andorra, I tried to shake my mood. Not only was I in a new country (number 47!!), but we’d escaped France without issues from the police (remember that Totoyaya’s vehicle papers are slightly out-of-date and we had been worried about the police when we’d entered France with Totoyaya back in June).

When we passed through Andorra’s first town, Pas de la Casa, and began to descend the other side of the col, the sun finally came out, the cold melted away, and a layer of my hopelessness lifted. It’s as though the mountain peaks had blocked out the worst of the bad weather – and the worst of my bad mood.

Yep, all around, things were starting to look up. We found a big free parking lot along a river at which to camp. We were at a lower altitude, with a more humane temperature. I could finally bring boxes outside and organize our home.

Andorra is a speck of a country in the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain. Officially called the Principality of Andorra, it’s a monarchy led by two princes – some big Spanish bishop and the President of France. The story goes that Charlemagne offered this piece of land to Mr. Spanish Bishop in thanks for fighting against the Moors. Later, a count of Foix (a nearby French town) married into the family, and the co-ownership of the land centralized to Paris over the course of several centuries. Both of these figures are more or less figureheads, and there’s a local parliamentary government.

I had known none of this before arriving in the Principality. Nor had I known that Andorra is renown throughout Europe for its tax-free shopping and its skiing. We were too early for ski season (though it felt cold enough that one might be forgiven for being confused), but we did plan to do a bit of shopping.

Each time Bruno and I had failed to locate the things we’d wanted for Totoyaya’s aesthetic makeover, Bruno would say, don’t worry, we’ll buy it in Andorra. That gave me pretty high expectations about Andorra’s consumer-capabilities. So I was pretty disappointed when, after a morning in Pas de la Casa and a full day in the capital, Andorra la Vella, we walked away with only a pair of hiking shoes for Bruno and a thin thermal fleece for me.

Andorra wasn’t nearly as cheap as I’d been told. Apparently its laws changed after the economic downturn a few years ago, so its days of tax-free, cheap shopping are somewhat over. Sure, you can still buy alcohol and tobacco at a deal, but we didn’t have space to carry a 24-pack of wine. We had to content ourselves with a Tobblerone bar as long as my arm.

Shopping isn’t a pastime I particularly enjoy, anyway. It’s never my primary (or even secondary) reason for visiting a country. I travel in order to gain a sense of a place and its people. It’s amazing how little time that takes. Within a few hours, Andorra was already speaking to me. It was telling me about its friendly, fit mountain people (in fact, Andorra has the highest life expectancy in the world, at 82 years old). It was demonstrating its Spanish influence, because we couldn’t find a restaurant open for lunch before 1pm. It was revealing its diverse cultural makeup (only 33% of residents are Andorran), because we heard Spanish, French, English, and German mixed-in with its official Catalan language.

Bruno and I spent two nights in Andorra. We traversed the country by its single main road that winds through a valley. We would have loved to turn left or right up a secondary road, but that was just it – turning meant going up. We were already pretty cold at 1000m (Andorra’s capital holds the European record for highest elevation), so neither of us wanted to experience what it would be like at 2000.

Even the lady at the tourist office told us we were between seasons. It was a bit too late for hiking or mountain biking (though in summer, both are supposedly spectacular, and, for such a small country, there are an incredible number of trails), but still too early for skiing. She gave us loads of maps and free information (you can tell that 80% of Andorra’s GDP comes from tourism), but in the end, we chose to move on.

We crossed another border, and headed into Spain (country number 48!!). I felt another layer of bad mood fade away – that layer of discomfort, grumpiness, and negativity that had stuck with me, despite myself, throughout Andorra. I started to laugh at Bruno’s jokes. My mood lightened. I recognized my old self. My home started to feel like a snug pair of go-to jeans.

It had taken me a few days to get back into the rhythm of life on the road. I hadn’t expected the transition to be so challenging, nor to take so long. I’d been a bit of a witch-with-a-B to Bruno for a while there, and I’d definitely asked myself the what-am-I-doing-here question a few times.

But I’d gotten past it. With each kilometer forward the road felt easier, my home got larger, and my heart grew with the fullness of impending adventure.

Yep, we’re back on the road people. It’s good to be home.