The rain in Spain does NOT stay mainly in the plain. It stays in the friggin mountains, where you’d expect it to be. And where I should have expected it. But, noooo, I just blithely expected MY path to be clear and easy. And it was, while I followed a suggestion by one of the UKRMers. The road from Bouleternere to Amelie les Bains really is a blast. The sort of twisty, turny road you can really get into a rhythm while riding. It wasn’t until I crossed over into Spain an hour later that the rains started in earnest. Earnest – that’s a euphemism for cats, dogs, elephants and orangutans. It poured. I found out my waterproof gear lost its waterproofness a while ago. It was all fine the first few weeks of the trip, through a lot of rain. But this stuff was a flood. And it soaked my boots, my socks, my gloves, and my crotch. So much for the great Helly Hansen rain trou. I was so miserable; I stopped in Puigcerda at 4:30 for the day. I took a siesta in a hotel and woke up around 7pm. I figured I’d take a walk around the town. Puigcerda is a Spanish town on the French border not far from Andorra. It sits on a little hill in a valley surrounded by the Pyrenees. So I walked into the center of town, through some narrow cobblestone alleyways, and turned the corner to find a square that overlooked the valley. Wow! The skies had cleared and the entire range was in view. Incredible.
The next day, I rode to Andorra, which is a modern fairy tale principality. Beautiful alpine views of snowy peaks above, coupled with duty-free shopping everywhere else you look. It’s a motorcyclist’s dream, because every maker of bikes or accessories in the world has an outlet there. I found a supermarket of moto gear and bought new gloves, boots and rain trou. Just in time, too, because as soon as I left Andorra, it started to rain again. Solid rain, off and on until I reached Barcelona 2 days later. Which may not be on the plains, but it ain’t in the mountains, which is where the rain stays, mainly, in Spain.
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