Travelling Hopefully - Cow Success and Snake Envy Edition

Of course my trip to Andorra La Vella triumphant though it was served as a mere interruption to the serious business of walking.  For a small country there is a lot of walking that can be done.  Since the country is about eighty percent mountain and twenty percent valley there is always another slope to be climbed and usually another spectacularly scenic valley to descend into when you’re tired of climbing (about twenty seconds in in my case).  In one of those valleys is a Tibetan bridge.  That is its modelled on bridges in Tibet apparently.  It is actually a giant suspension bridge that allows you to cross from one slope to another without the tedium of plodding through the valley below.  

Since the only people likely to come this far are probably quite happy with the valley plodding concept there seems to be little point the bridge.  The previous sentence is actually an understatement.  There is no point to the bridge.  It doesn’t lead to anything and the only thing you can do once you’ve crossed is turn around and come back unless you just want to keep walking until you violate the border of one of Andorra’s neighbours.  The whole thing is a tourist attraction pure and simple.  You have to pay for a ticket to get across as well as a shuttle bus to get you to the bridge in the first place.  Some of our company paid up and dutifully crossed the bridge.  Others like me continued proudly walking on terra firma which is why the bridge venturers got back to the hotel comfortably before us.  Next time I’ll take the bridge.

The final walk (at least it was the final walk for those of us whose knee finally gave out after giving good and faithful service) was a rather special one.  We headed into Sorteny Nature Reserve.  The trip notes gushed over the wildflowers and it wasn’t just flowers.  Marmots, wild boar, chamois and ptarmigans would be just some of the wildlife we didn’t see on the walk.  

Our walk would take us through valley meadows, up through forested slopes, onto somewhat more alpine appearing meadows, across narrow streams and finally end at a tarn or lake where lunch would be enjoyed.  At least that was the agenda if you were sensible.  Those whose last shreds of commonsense had deserted them could continue up to the top of a ridge where excruciating effort and the danger of vertigo would be compensated by 360 degree views over the countryside.  I gazed at the lake and the effort required to reach it and decided I had quite enough views to be going on with.

The lake was beautiful and the views across the valley stupendous and I regretted my decision not to climb the ridge not in the slightest.  I and one other sane person relaxed in the sun by a lake for an hour or so while our comrades struggled first up and then down the ridge.  We smiled smugly on their return and didn’t feel the need to greet them as they staggered in.

While wild animals didn’t exactly hurl themselves in front of my camera I was greatly pleased to encounter a meadow occupied by a number of rather handsome cows.  The clanging of their cowbells almost drowned out the shrill chirrups of the marmots who attempted to compensate for being invisible by making enough racket to wake the dead.  I was thoroughly satisfied with the presence of cows until I learned that a fellow walker had encountered and photographed an adder which the rest of us had missed.  I nearly wept with envy at the photographs.  Of course I could have been happy for my companion’s success and complimented him on some quite impressive photos.  There are many things I could have done in my life.

Also there was a report of bears.  We didn’t expect to see any but it certainly added a little urgency to the return journey.