Sleepless in Andorra

What do you do if you have four days off at the beginning of your MBA? You rent two vans, a big chalet in the mountains of Andorra, gather 17 classmates and hit the road one early Thursday morning. And what do you get? Three days of great fun with awesome people, a spontaneous lunch bag production line, a leisurely 8 1/2 hour hike in the clouds, hail on the way back and a desperate search of the warmest pool in the spa at night! Want to find out more? Just continue reading...

After a short three day week with pre-courses at school (I finally can go to lectures, yay! okay, we are talking about Basic Quantitative Methods and Introductory Financial Accounting, but still...) Shweta and I decided to go out with some classmates to celebrate the "end of the week" (thanks to the Catalan National Holiday on Thursday! long live Catalonia) and hit the bars on Wednesday night. After cocktails in the Old town we headed to a disco near our house, Luz de Gas. Music and company were really good, so we decided that sleep was overrated.


Eventually Shweta and I made it home just in time to pack our bags and leave for Andorra in the morning. Don't ask me about the trip - all I can say is the backseats were very comfortable and allowed for great sleep! At least for a few hours.

Our destination reached, we occupied our chalet, stocked up on groceries and enjoyed the nice views from our balcony. Highlight of the night: whilst cleaning up after dinner a spontaneous assembly line formed to prepare everyone's lunch bags for the big hike - now if that's not proof enough of our aptitude as future business leaders... :-)

The next morning, we got up early to attack the major item on our agenda: the hike up to Andorra's highest summit, the Pic de Coma Pedrosa at an altitude of almost 3000m. Getting ready for a complete group picture...


... before we started climbing and split up into smaller groups. The 4 1/2 hours uphill were extremely entertaining...



...and distracted us a bit from the fact that we were climbing 1400m in altitude!




Reaching the summit was amazing - we just didn't see much around us apart from fog. But I could feel the proximity to France...



After an extended picnic break on Coma Pedrosa we started our descent with thickening clouds...


... that were kind enough to unload hail on us. I guess at the latest at this point we all wondered why we hadn't chosen the beaches of Costa Brava as destination for our weekend trip... But we all made it safely back to the valley and rewarded ourselves with a visit to the spa! Where we found heaven in the sauna and steam room.

Yesterday, we went to Andorra la Vella, the microstate's capital, for a quick shopping break and then headed back to Barcelona. To find that summer isn't entirely over yet! We still have over 20°C and sunshine! Now all I need to do is get some sleep...