Andorra, the Land of Waiting

Andorra: The name alone conjures visions of an enchanted land from some fantasy novel featuring wizards and dragons and creatures that are half man-half something with hooves. When you you say it, it's always in hushed tones, as if being whispered from the depths of a mystical forest. And, if you're anything like me, it might as well be a fictional place because you have no idea where it is.

It's here, and I promise it's a real country! Well, technically it's a tax-free principality, but who cares?

Jason suffers from crippling wanderlust, and is constantly on the hunt for his next fix, which is how we ended up booking a weekend of snowboarding in a country we knew literally nothing about. I didn't even know what the official language was until we got there and everything was written in this strange mash-up of all Romance languages. But with my fluency in French and Spanish (once upon a time), we knew we could figure it out.

We rented a car and dragged our buddy Rick out of bed on Friday morning so we could get an early start. It's about a four-hour drive and the last hour is straight up a mountain. Certainly not a problem for Jason after our epic adventure driving through the Alps in August, but we were a little concerned about the conditions in winter. Lucky for us, people who live in the mountains know how to deal with snow and the roads were pretty clear.

As per the usual, Jason had meticulously researched everything in advance and decided the best town for us to stay in was Pas de la Casa: Close proximity to lifts, good variety of slopes, lots of places to eat and drink, and cheap accommodations. For someone who isn't much of a life planner, he sure does a good job planning vacations.

When we arrived in town, our first task was to find parking. No easy feat as the small city roads were a bit less plowed and, more precarious still, jammed with people ambling about in their ski suits. Sidewalks? Who needs them! Moving out of the way as cars are skidding down the hill? No, thanks! We parked the car and didn't even think about moving it for the next three days.

Next step: Check in to the hotel. It was a little after 4pm (we stopped in Toulouse for lunch) but we couldn't pick up the keys until after 5. No problem. We'll have a drink and come back. A round of 2€ pints later, we went back to the office, which was now packed with other guests trying to check in. It would seem that in 2014, when we have access to things like the internet and computers, getting people checked in to a hotel would be a relatively quick and easy process.

FALSE!

Check in was a 50-minute ordeal, not only because there was a lot of unnecessary filling out of forms by hand, but because the people working at the desk didn't actually know how to do their jobs. They couldn't take our payment for the balance of the room because they didn't know how to operate the credit card machine. They didn't know which key to give us because they didn't know how to read the registry. They took countless phone calls in the middle of handling our reservation and then forgot what we were doing when they finally got back to us. Ça me fait chier but at least we had a great view from our room.

After getting settled, we grabbed some dinner, watched the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games and ended up back at Paddy's Irish Bar (not to be confused with Paddy's Irish Pub) for drinks/pool/darts with all the other English-speaking people in town. We didn't get too cranked up, though, because we had an epic day of snowboarding in our very near future!

Bazooka-sized pepper grinder

Paddy's Irish Bar

We got up at 9 and started suiting up for our day on the slopes. Rick already had his own gear but Jason and I were renting from a place up the street. Again, this was a long and annoying process. Better than checking in to the hotel but it still took a lot more time that we anticipated. It was already 10:30 and we were wasting precious snow time! Time to get lift tickets. Holy shit, there's an endless line for this too? Couldn't you install some kiosks and get these things dispensed on the quick?

It was after 11 by the time we got to the slopes and, I'm sure you saw it coming, there was a massive line to get on the lifts. That's not even true. There was no line, just an insane mass of people clamboring all over each other, trying to get through the metro-like turnstiles to get on the lift. Who thought it was a good idea to make people on skis and snowboards to go through turnstiles?!?!?

It was pushing noon by the time we got to the top of the mountain, and we were so eager to just get a run in, that we (I?) kind of forgot that Jason didn't really know how to snowboard. We had been one other time in Virginia about two years ago and he spent most of the day falling down the mountain on his ass and nearly gave up. He had figured it out by the end but I suppose it's not really one of those "just like riding a bike" activities. Oops.

Moments before a face full of snow

He took a real hard fall on the very first run down the mountain, shattering his sunglasses and maybe even giving him a shade of a concussion. The teacher in me kicked in and I offered to stay with him on his next run and remind him how this whole thing works. We had to grab lunch in the middle of it since we forgot to eat breakfast in our haste to get on the mountain and Jason was getting hangry.

A couple more coaching runs before I left Jason to practice a bit and joined Rick on some of the tougher slopes. Suddenly the rage from waiting in long lines and Andorran inefficiency melted away. It's hard to be angry when you feel like you're ascending into heaven. The views could not have been more spectacular. I didn't bring a camera, because I don't really have one, so you'll just have to trust me. It was breathtaking. (All photo credits to Rick)

The lines started thinning out as they were able to open more lifts and we had four solid hours of uninterrupted snowboarding on longest, most beautiful runs I have ever seen. And, though the hoards of people everywhere would suggest otherwise, it wasn't even that crowded. I could carve all the way across the mountain and back without worrying about cutting someone off. GLORIOUS.

There are no lights on the slopes in Andorra so the lifts shut down at 5, which was about as long as our muscles could hold out anyway. Just like last time, Jason was really starting to get good toward the end but we were all too tired and too sore to go out again on Sunday. Now that we know what to expect, we can do things smarter next time.

We considered checking out some of the other towns in Andorra on our way out but traffic was miserable and we decided to just head back to Bordeaux. We wanted to swing through Toulouse for lunch again but the GPS took us on some crazy route up and over this mountain and the turn we were supposed to make would have had us driving through a snowbank. Technology fail. It was very pretty but no one really likes driving up and down icy mountain roads, especially when you haven't eaten. We ended up stopping in some random tiny town called Chioula ("Je suis où là?") to get some food, and even though we had just taken a 90-minute detour, it was hard to complain about the view.

Peace out, Pyrenees. See you when I can walk again.

Patience is a virtue, especially in Andorra.