Costa Blanca Mountain Walkers

Colin & Rainer's Andorran Holiday 2009

This was our third yearly visit and we chose to come later with the hope of having better weather but ,sadly, it wasn’t better.Just less snow.

The group was led by the TOFFs (only 2 members to date), The Old Farts Federation. Simple rules, you have to stop every few minutes to pretend to admire the view, take pics and look at the flowers and birds.

Actually, we are proud of our achievments, 12 walks in 14 days for 20 walkers with heights ranging from 2000m to 2880m. Walks were arranged for 2 groups, the faster and slower and days off for those who wished it. The faster smaller group were often in snow and the highest walk took 8 hours.

In the 2 weeks we went to the beautiful Pessons valley twice, otherwise the walks were mostly new. Good, because half the people had been last year too.

Besides walking we had a lot of fun too due to some irrepressible characters. Quietly some of us did drawing and boggle but particularly, our ladies organised some lively charades and entertainment and the ladies singing/dancing group was inclined to perform at the drop of a hat.

A highlight for some was the 2 days the Tour de France was in Andorra and it went past the hotel door - Hotel Coray lived up to it’s 3 star rating, complete with Frankenstein on the desk, who, for my money, is getting friendlier! (Is that possible! - Ed.)

Rainer stayed on for another week with 3 more visitors and a good time was had by all. 23 in total.

Probably there will not be a fourth visit next year but if you are interested in going at some time, let me know. Some are interested in El Chorro and I am researching the Alpujarras with Trevelez as a centre or maybe walking from there with luggage transported from centre to centre. Let me know your thoughts.

Colin Bagnall