Voila Vincent: Hairpin country

The road to Andorra is up: hairpin after hairpin turn to the top, and as you arrive at the height of jagged treeless mountain tops you think you’re done with climbing; surely you are now at the top of the world, (Mont Louis, at that point), but, unbelievably, the road continues to twist right into another vertical hill climb. And on it goes, twisting up, ever up, endlessly. Higher than we’ve ever been in the camping car.

Amazingly, there are video cameras trained on the route. Pour votre securite, the signs say. We have never driven anywhere that’s needed surveillance before. And just as well. A truck right in front of us, carrying a load of hot mix, swerved too wide and the camber tilted his load, laying his entire rig ever so neatly, and surprisingly gently, onto its side, firmly pinned to the cut away mountainside. A security vehicle, swooped in from nowhere and reached him before we could. The driver was safe. He climbed out of the cab, stood in the centre of the road, his eyes wide with shock, yet registering that he was lucky to be alive.

En route we pass a small hill community, Livia, that sits alone up there, much like an antiquated city state. All around, every bit of surrounding land is France, but Livia is completely Spanish, and has managed like that since ancient times.

From up high you can see the road as it curves around and down. At one stage I count six terraces of switchbacks clinging to the rockface of just one mountain. To build such a road must have been quite a feat. Giant slabs of concrete are steel bolted into the bedrock to hold the mountain in place. Looser rock is wire caged, stapled to the cliffs attempting to contain the inevitable landslides. Beneath one massive mountain a tunnel has been bored six kilometres long. The never-ending road works, maintenance and road security reduce the traffic to single file snarl in many parts. It must always be like this. Amazing expensive engineering for a tiny country with a population of something short of ninety thousand.

Andorra is a co-principality. It has been for over a thousand years. One of the co-rulers is the President of France, a prince of Andorra for the duration of his term of office; the other co-prince is the Bishop of Urgell in Catalonia. There is little agriculture. On these vertical slopes there is no soil. You can grow nothing. Even if gravity would allow it only 2% of the land is arable. We saw sheep, cattle and horses in ungainly stance attempting to negotiate the vertical tilt of their high summer pasture but any day now, they will be moved to lower ground. The land is given over to snow in the winter.

Consequently, Andorra lives off its mountains, mountain sports and tourism. Mountains drop down over 9,000 feet, allowing narrow gushing waterfalls to be harnessed for hyrdro-electricity. In winter jagged peaks are topped with snow and anchor cable cars that bring snow skiiers, downhill racers, cross country skiers and snow shoers. In summer, soft clouds float between mountain peaks, a boon for photographers; and icy streams flash with trout for the fishing crowds, and for those who are brave enough, who don’t suffer from vertigo, there is hiking. But, like the cattle and sheep it is likely done on very uneven legs.

Tourism brings money, lots of it. The country appears wealthy and everywhere there is improved infrastructure, roads and apartments, going up. The smaller villages are all smart ski resorts, clad in cheerful geranium–red hanging plants or window boxes; most, not yet open for the season.

The capital, Andorra de Vella, looks all shiny-new and modern. We camp about 10 minutes from the centre of town. As always in the Pyrenees we hear fast running water everywhere: funnelled into canals, streams, gurgling in channels underground. Apartment blocks grow vertically from the terraces of the surrounding rock face.

These house a youthful population. The city feels young, hip and energetic, surrounded by its shabbier cousins: Spain and France. Downtown all is new glass and clean concrete. Most signs are not readily recognisable: not French, not Spanish, possibly Catalan. It is efficient like Singapore; energetic like Hong Kong; culturally spare.

Amazing that every morsel of food in every restaurant, every product displayed in every store window, every hammer, nail and heavy duty pneumatic drill or crane has to be brought into this country over these tortuous roads either from France or Spain. There is no place to put a fixed wing airport: the country is completely reliant on roads. Fuel that is barrelled up these mountains from elsewhere is sold cheaper here than anywhere else in Europe. Products that come from the rest of the world are available duty free in this tax haven environment.

Ten million people travel these crazy roads to come to Andorra every year, for that very reason. And it is at times like this that the inequities of the earth’s resource distribution seem highlighted in bright marker pen.