ACROSS ANDORRA - Cycle Touring Documentary

Alright Kevin. Here we go. We're about to say goodbye. You're going to head off into the clouds and I'm going to head off into the blue sky. That's right. I know, that's exactly how it appears. So it's been a great six weeks Darren. Thanks for everything and bonjourné as they say around here. Yeah, no thank you. It's been good. So, have a good game. See ya. You aren't going to be lonely. Yep, I am. I don't mind admitting it. And we'll have to share, I mean, I already got one high five today so I'm already like winning the contest. Oh well. That's cheating. It's two to one now. Alright, I'm going to take off. Okay. See ya. Talk soon. Be safe, yeah. Bye Darren. Bye. That's a weird feeling seeing someone that you've been traveling with for 40 days just bike away. And just like that, I'm back on my own, cycling towards Andorra and leaving Foix, France right now. It's a weird feeling knowing that Kevin's not behind me right now. Well, he is behind me but he's going the other direction. That's the first sign I've seen for Andorra right there. So I've gone six kilometers already. So far the grade is not very bad. I'm going about 14 to 16 kilometers per hour at the moment. If it stays like this all the way to the top, this will be a piece of cake. I don't think it's going to stay like this though. I think it's going to get very steep and probably very soon. Hello. Do you speak English? No. Did you come from Andorra? Andorra, yes. Is it very... Tarrasco. Axel Eterne. Andorra, just before the pass. When I passed that couple on their touring bicycles, the guy started yelling, Bicycle touring pro! Bicycle touring pro! And so I turned around and chased him. But then when I caught up to him, he didn't speak English. He spoke French. And he basically just said, Yeah, we're going on a bike trip around France and they just came from Andorra. That it's super hilly and that I should try to stay off the highway. So I think that's what he said at least. 20 kilometers. Go, go, go, go. 21, 22, 23. Yeah. So it's 80 kilometers from Foix, France, where I started this morning, to the France-Andorra border. I've already gone 10 kilometers and it hasn't been that bad. So hopefully it continues like this for a while. 70 more kilometers to go. Last summer, I cycled up the Transfagarasan Highway in Romania, which is the second highest road in Romania. And on that particular day, I knew I was going to be going up a big hill. And today feels like that day. I mean, it started out kind of flat here, but I know that there is a big hill up ahead of me. And last year, going up the Transfagarasan turned out to be the best thing I did all year. Like, I loved it. It was kind of hard at the time, but looking back, best experience of the year. So I'm hoping today there's going to be a good one. This is the way I'm going. It's pretty flat right now. 30 kilometers in. Every day for the last 40 days, we have stopped, Kevin and I have stopped, cycling at 11, 11.30, so that Kevin could get a coffee. Today is my first day riding without Kevin, and there is no coffee break today. Here's a map of the valley I'm going through. So I came from this direction, and now I'm here in Luzonay or something. And it looks like I go just a short distance to Axla Fermes. And then that's when it looks like the climb begins, up to Andorra, this way. Way up here. There's a lot of road construction going on on this road. And the shoulder is, like, non-existent, with cars passing, big trucks. It's not a lot of fun at the moment. And I'm going uphill, which makes it even worse. I'm in Axla Fermes right now, France. About 20 kilometers from the border of Andorra. So I've turned off on the road to Andorra now. It's definitely going to get steeper here. First two kilometers of this hill, not too bad. I'm still in my middle chain ring. I'm in the shade now. It got really cold. And I have no idea where this road goes, but it looks straight up, straight ahead. I thought this road was going to be crazy steep, but it's really not that bad. My guess is, like, that there are 10 kilometers up here that are just crazy, crazy steep. But right now, I'm humming along at 12 kilometers per hour. Okay, it's suddenly gotten very difficult. I'm going 7 kilometers uphill into a headwind. I'm about to go around the tunnel. Only 38 kilometers to the capital of Andorra. Check out the view behind me right now. That is awesome. It's getting really dark. Looks like it could rain here at any moment. It says it's 11 degrees Celsius right now. It feels like about 2 degrees Celsius. It is cold. I'm still in France right now, but that, right behind me, right there, is Andorra. After Petro station, the second turn. Ah, okay. And here, here is the... Little road. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. So I went to the visitor center, and the guy there said, you know, I asked him about camping. He said, no camping. He said, there's no camping in town, but a hotel only costs 25 euros. And I was like, what? So I got a hotel. This is a really small hotel room, but it feels so big because I have it all to myself. I don't have to share it with Kevin. Sorry, Kevin. No offense. It just feels good to have the room to myself. So I'm going to walk around town now and try and find some food. And, yeah, just check the place out. I just got a pizza. I'm going to carry it back to my hotel and eat it there. Here's the pizza I got. It's pretty small for 11 euros, but it looks pretty good. Looks pretty good. It's got onions, asparagus, mushrooms, and artichoke. Well, that just about does it for today. Today was my first day riding without Kevin. We spent the last 40 days together cycling across Portugal, Spain, and France. And so now I'm back on my own. I have left France now, and I'm in Andorra. Tomorrow is supposed to rain like crazy. And so I don't really know what I'm going to do. If it's pouring rain in the morning, I might just stay in the hotel where I am right now. If not, I'm probably going to cycle about 45 kilometers to the capital city of Andorra. And I'm going to stay in another hotel there tomorrow night. Again, it's only 25 euros for that hotel, just like this one. So it's a good deal, and it's supposed to rain again tomorrow. So 45 kilometers, probably in the rain. And then I'll have a hotel to stay in in the capital of Andorra. And then the following day, I'll leave Andorra and cross back into Spain. So that's kind of my plan, but it's going to depend on the weather. When I wake up tomorrow morning, the weather will tell me what to do. Good morning. So yesterday I crossed from France into Andorra. I'm in Andorra now. The weather today is terrible. You might be able to see the clouds behind me are really low. It is very cold. I can see my own breath. And that is the direction I'm going, up into those clouds, way up there. You can't even see the mountain up above, but that's where I'm going right away. I'm only going to cycle about 30 kilometers today, and I'm going to stay in the capital city of Andorra tonight. The weather is supposed to be really bad today, so just 30 kilometers, get into a hotel, and call it a day. You can just barely see the mountaintops through those clouds. I've only gone 1.4 kilometers. I'm already exhausted. Bike lane. That's nice. Having this little bike lane makes a huge difference. It's just a white line in the road, but mentally, 6.6%, I don't know what that says, 2,200-something meters. I'm at the top, I think. There's a sign here saying it's 2,408 meters, and that this is part of the Tour de France and a bunch of other races. All right, so I made it to the top. Only 5, 5.5 kilometers up this steep hill, and now look at the view behind me. The sun is out, mountains in the distance. Looks great. I'm going downhill for a little while. I stopped and took some pictures, and now I'm on my way. ♪♪♪ Going down that hill was a lot of fun, but man, it was cold. I am so glad I have my gloves. Oh, my gosh, it's so cold right now. The wind is whipping up this valley that you see behind me, and so even though I'm going downhill on like a 9% or 10% grade, I'm having to pedal because the wind is blowing me back up the hill. Pretty awesome, though. So just like that, I'm in the capital of Andorra. It is freezing cold right now. The wind is blowing. I'm going to find my hotel and see if they'll let me check in. It's only 1.30 in the afternoon. Hotel Syracuse, that's where I'm staying. So here's the room. I've already put my bags down. This hotel is going to let me just bring my bike right up into the room. So the bike's downstairs. I've got to go grab it now. So I made it. There's the bike in the room. My bags are over here. Let's see what kind of view we have. It's only 1.30, 1.45 right now, which is great. So I have like a whole day just to walk around town, explore. Right behind my hotel is this like raging river. Check it out. One of the things I like most about traveling is getting lost. Just arriving in a town like this one and walking around, not knowing really where I'm going or what I'm even looking for. I think too many people nowadays, they go to a place and they have an idea. Got to see the Eiffel Tower. Got to see the Louvre. Got to see the Museum of Modern Art. And they hit those check boxes and they don't see anything else. I think it's much better to kind of arrive in a place, wander around for a bit, get lost, find cool little places like this that no one has ever really even heard of. And for me, a lot of my favorite places on my travels have been just little places like this that I've discovered accidentally. No one ever told me about and I didn't aim to get there for any particular reason. Just stumbled upon them. Alright, I just got back from walking around town. Those guys at the Turkish place were really nice. They were asking about my trip and wondering how long I was in Andorra. The guy said, have you tried couch surfing? I told him I had. The plan now is to eat my Turkish kebab thing. Hopefully it's good. Then I'm going to edit some photos and call it a night. So, thanks for watching guys. The plan is tomorrow I will leave Andorra, cycle out of Andorra and cross back into northern Spain. So, the goal tomorrow is to get as far as I can east towards Guarana, Spain. So, until then, adios. And just like that, I'm in Spain again. There was no passport check or anything in Andorra. They just kind of waved me through. So, very easy. So, Andorra is behind me. It only took me, well, it really only took one day to cycle across the whole country. But, only a couple hours really. You can probably cycle across Andorra in three hours or less. Two if you're fast. Check out those mountains off to my right. Super high. This is a great road so far. The traffic has really decreased. I think most of the cars went right back there, headed towards Barcelona. I found this little picnic area right off the side of the road. I didn't really need to stop, but it just looked inviting. So, I came over to sit for a bit. I'm going to try out these bars that I bought. See if they're any good. I don't know. It's weird. In Europe here, or in this part of Europe at least, I can't find protein bars. Like back in the States, I would be buying Cliff Bars or something like that all the time. Here you can't find anything like that. At least not at the supermarket. The closest you find are like cereal bars, granola bars. It's about 1.30 in the afternoon. I've already gone about 50 kilometers so far. I really only have to go 60 kilometers today in order to be on schedule. So, not too much further to go really. That's kind of the direction that I'm going. And up there in the sky are a bunch of rain clouds. I checked the weather this morning and they said it could start raining around 3 p.m. It's 1.30 p.m. right now. So, it's very possible that I will just go like 10, 15 more kilometers and then find a place to camp. I just discovered the way that I want to go is through a giant tunnel over here. It's a giant tunnel going through the mountain and I can't go through there on my bicycle. Now, there's a way around, which is this road behind me, but it's a way around. And then I think it goes up in the mountains. The road on the map looks like this. Like, oh gosh. So, I guess I'm going this way now. And it's starting to rain. This is the way I'm actually going to go through that kind of valley and probably up the hills a little bit. But over here is a... Over here is a Spanish enclave. I forget the name of it. I'll look it up in a moment. But it's Spain inside of France. It's like an island inside of France. Right over here, maybe 20 kilometers this direction. So, I think as long as the weather holds out, I'm going to go to that Spanish enclave. To get there, I have to cross back into France, then into the Spanish enclave, then come back into France again, and then back into Spain and over this direction. So, I'm going to try to do all that in the next couple hours before it rains, hopefully. I'm leaving Spain now and crossing back into France. Alrighty, just crossed the bridge. I'm back in France now. Headed toward Llivia. Here it is. I'm approaching Llivia. Oh man, this is cool. There's the sign. Llivia. So, here I am in Llivia. Like I said before, Llivia is an enclave of Spain that is situated inside of France. So, in order to get here, I had to cross from Spain through France. Now, I'm back in Spain. This is part of Spain. And then I'm going to go back to France and then back into Spain. So, yeah. I just wanted to come and check it out. I'm going to ride into town a little bit, look around a little bit, and then I'll head out. So, I've just bought some water and some orange juice. I'm going to put the orange juice in my water bottle here. And then I'm going to carry this on the back of my bike. Just back here. That way I have some water to drink tonight in my tent. I'm carrying this orange juice box around. I'm trying to find a trash can to put it in. Alright, I'm leaving Llivia the same way I came in. So, I'm in France right now. About to cross back into Spain. I'm back in Spain now. Do you see that big mountain up ahead? I have to go over that mountain right now. The good thing about going on this road, though, is that most of the cars are using the tunnel. I can't go in the tunnel, so I've got to go up and over the mountain on this side road. I'm at 86 kilometers for the day. I'm going to start looking for a place to camp. If I see something, I'm camping. Check this out. I'm just biking along here. Somebody has their own private castle situated in this little valley. Look at that place. That is really cool. So, like, that over there is Llivia. That's where I came from. And then I'm going up this road here. Up in this direction. This is actually, like, a really amazing road. It's not too steep, although it started off steep. And there have only been, like, 12 cars that have passed me in the last hour. So, yeah, it's really pleasant. And the scenery around me is spectacular. The video doesn't even capture it, really. There is nowhere flat, however, to camp. It's just pure cliffs on my left and pure cliffs going down on my right. That's it. So I think I'm going to have to climb all the way to the top of this hill tonight. Maybe camp at the top, where it's flat, hopefully. And then go down tomorrow. We'll see. So, this is camp for tonight. I went 100 kilometers today. The road is, like, right down there behind me. There's a flat spot here. Whenever I stealth camp, I try to get above the road if I can. That way I am looking down at people that would possibly come. Cars and stuff like that. Hikers, whatever. So that I can see them, but they can't see me. If you camp below them, below the road, it's more likely that people are going to spot you. So that's why I push my bike up to this little flat area. Just to get away from the road and to get myself some elevation. So I'm only just now getting started. It's 1251. Yesterday I did, what, 98.6 kilometers. Total time on the bike, 5 hours and 42 minutes. Today I'm not going to go nearly as far as I did yesterday. I've really only got 90 kilometers to go to get to Jonets, where the start of the bike tour with Touring Catalonia is. That's in two days. So I have today and tomorrow to bike 90 kilometers. So that's why I got such a late start today. And, yeah, there's no real rush or anything. So I'm just going to take my time and enjoy it. This is seriously the best road that I've biked over the last month and a half. From my bike tours in Portugal, Spain, France, and Andorra, this road is the best. As much as I would like to just continue riding on this road forever, stopping and taking pictures and videos, the weather is turning. It is getting really cold, and the clouds are coming in. And I checked the weather yesterday before I left Andorra, and they said today was the highest probability of rain. So yesterday I got lucky. I only got rained on for about one minute of the whole day. Holy crap, look at this view. This is beautiful. This is like bike touring heaven. This road is amazing. Best road I've ridden in a year, for sure. It is so cold right now, and there's lightning and thunder. So I'm trying to get down this mountain as quickly as I can. Woo, my face is frozen. I just made it to town. Ribes de Fresa. I'm looking for food now. Just went in to get some food, and now the plan is to find a place to camp. I'm trying to find a place to camp now. It's raining. I'm in this valley. There's a river running alongside the road, so it's like nowhere flat, basically, to camp. I found this little road that I'm on right now, but it's like private property. It is nowhere good to camp here. So I'm going to go back to the main road, continue on. I'm not filming a lot because it's raining and I'm miserable. It is absolutely freezing right now. So I'm just going to find a place to camp, and you'll see me then. So here is the campsite that I've found for tonight. Wild Camping in Northern Spain. Just going to pitch my tent right in here, maybe. Yeah. It's raining right now, and I'm pretty wet. My goal is to... It's not raining too hard at the moment, so I'm going to try to get my tent set up as quickly as possible. Climb inside, change into my dry clothes, and that's it. I went 42 kilometers today, that's it. But tomorrow, I've only got about 50 to go until I get to Jonetz, where the start of the Touring Catalonia bike tour begins. So, alright, I'm going to set up my tent now. While I was laying in my tent earlier, a little mouse scurried past the edge of my tent, probably smelling some of the food inside. So if you just sit and be quiet for a little while, and pay attention to your surroundings, you'll see all kinds of cool stuff. I've spent years of my life camping in the forest, and just kind of wandering around like this. So I've gotten pretty good at identifying the sounds of certain animals. I can tell you, like, that's a bird, that's a deer coming through the forest, or that's a dog, or whatever. Yeah, you develop an ear for these sorts of things. And so, yeah, but you have to listen, that's the thing. Like, you've got to listen. I just saw an owl up on a tree branch here, but it saw me coming and it flew up on the ridge over here. I'm going to try to sneak up on it, see if I can still see it. Good morning, I'm Darren Alf from BicycleTrainPro.com. It's about 10 a.m., I'm near Ripple, Spain at the moment. Camped out along the edge of a river in the mountains, sort of. I'm going to pack up my stuff now, and head about 50 kilometers southeast towards the town of Jonetz, Spain, where I will begin a week-long self-guided bike tour with a local tour company called Touring Catalonia. I'm in Ripple, Spain right now, but I can't leave town until I find some water, at the very least, food and water. And it's Sunday, so everything is closed. Ripple, Spain turned out to be a much bigger place than I thought it was going to be. This is the direction that I came from, like I was way up there on the mountain. And now I'm down here in this little valley, and I'm going to go up this road now. This is the N260A going to Olat, Spain. There were three different ways I could go, like a northern way this way is the middle way, or the southern way. I'm picking this one. It looks hilly, but I have time, so it'll be fun. Picture of you here. Olat. So I just ran into another bicycle tourist, the first one I've seen in a while. He's from Germany near Munich, traveling alone. Started in Barcelona, well, this leg of his trip he started in Barcelona, and now he's going towards Portugal. It's always nice to arrive in town and be instantly greeted with a bike path. It's like I've entered a whole new world here. Jungle! My love, I walk with the bay With the bay My life, I spend it all for joy It depends on what you've scratched, that's how you'll get it. But it's good, for sure. Come, you have to prepare the flamenquitos, or flamenquitas. The crazy spirit will come out the way it came out. I don't know what was going on there, but it's just one of those random things you kind of stumble across. That was fun. There's a really beautiful bike path here, I wasn't expecting anything like this. Taking me from Olot to Jonets, where the bike tour with Touring Catalonia begins. Black cat, crossing my path. Hey there. So I made it to the farmhouse hotel where we're staying tonight. This is it behind me. Over there, and over there. And there's a bunch of cows behind me, and chickens right there. It's going down from the ringways. And then on the beach we will take another different route, but a cycle path in this case. You're not going to be able to do that stuff. Why not? Because we don't have shoes. Yes. It's okay, it's okay. It's okay. Okay. No, no, no. No? No, no, no.