Start of the Pyrenees......

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Hello Again!

Well we left San Sebastian on Friday and headed off into the Pyrenees so we had our first proper go at driving through the mountains. I wasn´t off to a great start as I fell off after about 5 mins of starting out and later had a little accident with my water bottle leaking in an area that looked like i´d "had a little accident" (I think its karma...)
We headed off toward a small village of Torla and the route was truly spectaular, bendy roads, precariously hugging the sides of the mountains, the only thing I hadn´t factored in was my vertigo kicking in and as we got nearer to Torla Stu saw more spectalur scenery, eagles overhead, a naked lady swimming in a crystal blue lake... i saw the dashed line in the centre of the road! The campsite here was also lovely with loos that would rival posh hotel (except the ensuite bit). We could only get 15 min of internet access here so we checked in on site and would like to say thanks to everyone for your messages (Dave and Dean many thanks, i´ll think of you guys sitting at your desks working away! - Stu) and got info from Trish/Martin on The tour de France which was "just up the road" in a couple of days.....
The next day we got the bus to Perdido and the National Park of Ordesa. We´d planned to visit the Cave of Casteret here which hold some impressive ice colums, but after a few hours of climbing I was finding the path a little too steep, Stu carried on a little way to find more of an uphill scramble than a nice walk so we had to admit defeat and give up. But the views en route here were still worth the walk and we finished up in an air conditioned bar watching the end of the Tour de France stage in Andorra before heading back to site.

On Sunday we were off to see "La Tour!" in La Mongie (don´t know why this name appealed to us both!!) Mr Garmin said this would take us 1.30h and we started out before 9AM so we would have plenty of time to find spot to watch tour that would pass through around lunch time. To cut a long story short... AARRRRGH! we hate the sat Nav and we are now calling him Cerberus! It decided to reclaculate our route and take us on the more "Scenic B-road" On the positive side: It was (as usual) very scenic, We saw some mountain goats along our path, we learned a lot about clutch control and 1st gear hair pin bends. On the less than positive side: There were more pot holes than tarmac, Wavey roads look better in pictures than upclose when your hands are aching and you´re about to be boiled alive, Stu now has a uncontrollable phobia of downhill bends!!!
After almost 4 hours we´d just about given up on getting to the tour, when Cerberus guided us to a road with a ruddy great landside on top of it! But luckily the French version of John Cleese (from his Fawlty Towers era) had put a cafe next to it, so we stopped off to be insulted (until we were paying the bill) and consider a snow ball fight (yes there was snow - but we´d lost the will....!)
The way home was much less eventful as we decided to take it easy and use the map, we were in quite good humour as ´what else could happen?´ just before Stu dropped his bike ouside a cafe we´d stopped at (so it´s now 2-1). Later we treated ourselve´s to Pizza and they brought out my Veggie one covered in ham (ever had one of those days...)

We decided to escape Torla on Monday (for obvious reasons!) and took a couple of days to get to where we now are in Andorra. We may be novice Motorbike travellers but after riding along those beautiful but bendy roads in this heat we have no idea how some people manage hundreds of miles per day (and it´s definatley not for us!) There was a section of the N-260 where I was following Stu though a ravine and it really did look stunning. On getting to Andorra we have found traffic again (most of journey´s been pretty quiet) Its a busy city surrounded by mountains and something of a tourist attraction because it´s not part of the EU (loads of duty free shops here) We´re hoping to have a couple of boring days here to recharge batteries etc before heading off for a bit more scenery and then barcelona.

Photo´s to follow later when we find a better cafe.

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