The Jade Emperor has it all planned out for me. We have a saying “Men makes plans. The Jade Emperor realizes it.” In this situation, he appeared from the sky actually under the form of a depressive bird.
Jesus Christ, out of an enormous open space at the airport and plenty of prettier planes to choose from, the bird decided to commit suicide by slamming onto my plane and got stuck. The flight was delayed for three hours for a technical check. I didn’t know about the incident at first as the first thing I did when I got on the plane was to put on the eye shade and slept. I woke up after an hour, still seeing people outside the window instead of clouds, I turned around and asked a man sitting next to me. “Dead bird on the plane,” he said. “Huh, where? In here?” I asked. “Nah, on the wing,” he replied.
Instead of arriving at 10:00 in Reus, another low-cost, suburban airport which Ryanair passes off as ‘Barcelona’ on low-fare promotion flyers; I got there around 13:00. I also had to take another 90-minute bus ride to Sant Station bus in Barcelona. Despite all the research I made to squeeze an Andorra trip in my last days in Spain, it doesn’t make sense to go to Andorra now. I have completely given up on the journey, and I slowly walk up and down the sidewalk figuring out the nearest metro to the city center and where I will spend the last two nights.
Sometimes even the Jade Emperor changes his mind. During the last five minutes, I have walked back and forth in front of Eurolines bus agency. There it is, to my face, is a big sign “Barcelona – Andorra” painted on the window glass. During the past few days, I have been trying to find out from which station buses to Andorra depart. Barcelona is a big city and has many bus stations which far away from one another. Right now, I’m standing at the exact bus station.
It is already 15:00, and the next bus to Andorra will leave in 45 minutes. I need to make a decision. I cross the street to withdraw more money and walk back, not able to decide. Tracing my steps back and forth for another 15 minutes, I decide to call Liam, my host in Andorra La Vella. If I cannot reach him, or he advises anything remotely negative, I will take it as a sign for me to stay put in Barcelona. By calling Liam, I’ve already leaned toward not going to Andorra. Liam hasn’t replied to my SMS or answered my earlier calls. However, he picks up the phone on the second ring. “Sure, you can stay at my home, no problem. Whenever you get on the bus, let me know.” Okay, that’s it. I’m going to Andorra.
It will be years before I come back to Barcelona if I come back at all.
I buy a one-way ticket (24.50 EUR) to Andorra hoping I will find a return trip directly to Girona once there. Now that I am sitting comfortably on the bus and not being distracted by should-I-go-or-should-I-stay thoughts, I am distracted by something else: the noises and the silent scream from my stomach. I have forgotten to eat since waking up at 5:30 in the morning to catch my flight from Seville, plus the extra hours when the flight got delay and the one-and-a-half-hour bus ride to Barcelona. I had only two portions of tapas the night before. I was full then due to the slow eating and digesting a tapas meal, but two portions of tapas aren’t going to last me 24 hours. I hardly have any energy left, but there are no restaurants nor fast-food stands at this bus station. I end up chewing on leftover smoked sausage that I bought a few days ago and drinking a bottle of coca cola from a vending machine for extra sugar and hopped back on the bus.
Andorra is a tiny country sandwiched between Spain on the North East and France on the South West. The Andorrans are carefree, happy business goers who don’t mind letting their country headed by the French president and a Spanish bishop. Anyone messes with Andorrans will have to answer to Sarkozy with the blessing from the divine authority. Catalan is the country official language, but the local won’t mind if you holler Spanish, French or even English at them. Regular TV has six channels: two in Spanish, two in French, one English, and one in Portuguese reflecting the makeup of Andorra. Andorrans are outnumbered by Spaniards, French and other foreigners who are allured by the country tax-heaven status and no income tax. The unemployment rate is ridiculously low unless you don’t consider almost 0% low.
I arrive at 19:00 and feel jubilant to find many shops are still open. I don’t plan to buy anything and only want to witness something unique to Andorra: “cheap” shopping. Given that I don’t have enough time to explore other cities to see the real beauty of this country, I cannot miss the cheap shopping experience, which I had read before coming here. Else, my six-hour trip to/from this country will be a waste. Fortunately, most electronic shops and a few designer brand stores are still opened, but that’s about it. The street is empty. There is nothing like what I read in online guides which describes throngs of cars driving to Andorra to buy stuff. The author must have been here years ago when indeed Spaniards and French drove across the border just to shop. Nowadays, with more competition, and the electronic and computer market has become saturated, there isn’t much advantage to shopping here. I entered a few stores to check out a few items. The prices are not cheap compared to expensive Prague. Then again, I am not the kind of customer shop owners would want to see in their stores. I expect to find a $100 worth camera marked down to $50.
My Andorran host, Liam, is a half French half Chilean. He studied in France and decided to come to Andorra to start a business selling musical equipment. When I ask why he didn’t stay in France after graduating, he sighs: “The French are destroying the country. They think that money grows on trees. More money and less work. They are going down. People made a fortune in France and took money out. No one wants to invest in France anymore.” Why does it sound very familiar to me? I have two friends who live and work in Paris. One is an accountant, and the other is a general doctor. They complained a lot about the “laziness” of the French society.
Andorra la Vella is a late riser. The city doesn’t wake up until 10:00, the prime time for shoppers to arrive in the shops. I have abandoned my plan to shop until I drop and team up with Marija, a traveling fellow I met at Liam, to do a quick sight-seeing of the city. There isn’t much to see except shops. Many historical sites have been torn down to give space to stores and buildings. This country seems a contrast to Spain, which has the second highest number of UNESCO heritage sites after Italy. However, Andorra is a tourist magnet. You will be surprised by the number of annual tourists flocking to this tiny country, a whopping 10 million. If there is a fight between the Andorrans and the tourists, the tourists will surely beat up the locals just by the flick of their fingers. The pitiful locals are outnumbered 1 to 10. Thanks goodness, tourists come here to either to shop until they drop or to explore nature and not getting macho with Andorrans or anything like that.
Marija and I do neither of that because we are jaywalking in the city inhaling fresh air and soak in the tranquility of the landscape. We really need a calm environment after many days suffocating in big, noisy cities of Spain to which we are going to return soon in a few hours.
It is unfortunate that I have too little time in Andorra. From the sight of the rugged landscape with the Pyrenees mountain imposing on all sides, the real beauty of the country must be waiting ahead but only when travelers venture further to smaller villages.
Another time, perhaps. Now as the year is slowly ending, I want to go home.
12/2009
[slickr-flickr type=”galeria” tag=”andorra” caption=”on” description =”on”]
My name is Cindy, also rhymes with travel junkie. A friend said I was probably a gipsy in my previous life. One of my many secret missions in life is to convert you to run off every once in awhile.
