One of my many nightmares, I have quite a few, is about driving Baloo into a small village. The streets get increasingly narrow until we are stuck. Then I have to try and reverse out which is almost impossibly difficult. Cars are blocking the way. Walls are getting scraped. We are reversing over well-kept gardens. Angry villagers appear waving pitchforks and burning torches. You get the idea? Nearly happened during our first couple of days in the Pyrenees. From the map I could see the valley road led up to a col. Looked nice. No excess of hairpin bends. No weight or length restrictions. No road signs indicating it was not suitable for larger vehicles. First village was narrow but nothing too unusual. Second village was even smaller. I was starting to have doubts and began looking for a turning spot. Third village was ridiculous. Literally just a few centimetres either side. People watching out of the windows and scowling. We made it through onto the road that started to climb up the valley side. Narrow, crumbling edges, steep drops. I was losing my nerve but there was nowhere to turn. We took a sharp turn over a bridge where a dirt track joined. With a few shunts I managed to reverse into this, put the parking break on, stopped the engine and took a few deep breaths.
Carry on up? The road might widen above the valley. The map showed no more villages. Or it might become dangerously narrow and we could get impossibly stuck. One option is always to get the motorbike down and do a reconnaissance. However, we were completely blocking the track and it was getting towards evening. Eventually we chose to go back. It was tricky but we knew it was possible. In fact, knowing it was possible made it easier. Gave me the confidence that so long as I was careful everything would be fine. And it was. A few villages tutted at us but others saw the humour in the situation. Nothing got damaged. We did not get attacked. Shortly afterwards we were safe in a quiet layby. The stuff of nightmares.
The next few days we stuck to the main roads. Not so interesting but easier on my nerves. We ended up in Andorra which is a good place to buy cheap diesel. Cheap in this sense means cheaper than in the rest of Europe. The days of genuinely cheap diesel are long gone. There is a nice, truck sized, parking area right on top of the pass above the town of Pas de la Casa. We settled down here with a handful of other motorhomes. It has been quite hot lately but up at 2,000m it was deliciously cool. We enjoyed the fresh breeze with the sunset.
Next morning I took Cent for his usual short walk before breakfast and noticed a car further down the hillside. It was stuck in some mud. Looked like an attempt to dive along a boggy track that was really only suitable for a tractor. We had breakfast before checking again and he was definitely stuck. Baloo made short work of dragging the small hatchback out. The car and the owner were both very muddy but otherwise unharmed. We waved goodbye and continued west along the Pyrenees.
