Skiing In Bulgaria - Part 2 (1/3) By Steve Rudd

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3). Part 1.

Giant Christmas trees loomed as far as the eye could see below, as I marvelled at the extraordinary engineering it must take to make a gondola a reality. After the thirty-minute ride to the top we were immediately greeted by a stunning panorama of the surrounding countryside which was beautiful beyond words. So pristine and so serene. Well, serene if you can discount the hundreds if not thousands of other skiers and snowboarders that were in the vicinity, lapping both the sun and the snow up in equal measures. Remember: the application of sun-lotion in high altitudes is a must.

Even at this height there were easy-going nursery slopes to play about on. If you fall on these, the only thing that usually hurts is one's pride. Head down a Black Run (suitable for experts only), and you could literally return home 'broken' to the core. So, Day Three and Four were spent perfecting our turns and 'snowplough' stops on a few different slopes. Ironically, it's the lifts back up to the top that can sometimes prove to be the most persistent pain.

The drag-lifts (aka button-lifts) are designed in a way that you shove a pole with a small seat between your legs which then allows you to be dragged up to the top of the mountain, but if your skis aren't kept parallel and managed to get crossed, then you'll no doubt soon know about it. You'll probably fall off in a thoroughly spectacular fashion, as I know from bitter personal experience when I fell off one some 200-yards from the summit. Once you're off the lift, you're off it. You either head back down to join the back of the queue, or walk onwards and upwards - which can be a soul-destroying act given the fact that ski boots aren't conducive to flexibility, dammit!

Every morning we had to be up early (if you can call actually getting out of bed at 7.45am early, even if I didn't actually have a bed to get out of... I simply picked myself off the floor), so big-nights-out were off the agenda in favour of a few beers over dinner. The staple Bulgarian beers seem to be Kamenitza and Zagorka, both of which taste like Amstel, if you happen to be familiar with such a drink. By 10pm we were all usually exhausted, despite the temptation that the Borovets pubs and clubs did wield. We realised that hangovers would just make the next day's skiing a sickening nightmare, and none of us was thrilled by the prospect of potentially throwing up in front of our group as a result. When it all comes down, we do have standards.

Day Five heralded something else for us to look forward to as well as the day's skiing. We'd booked some time on ski-doos after our session, for an hour between 5pm and 6pm, just as darkness was beginning to invade the forest through which we were led. We'd been reliably informed that ski-doos are like motorbikes, and somebody else had said that you actually require a motorbike license to use one. But you don't. I've never been on a motorbike.

Continued ... next page (2/3)

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