Big Adventures, Little World

By now we were getting used to the early starts and our bodies weren’t hurting so much after the first few days either. We got out onto the mountain and the snow was coming in thick and fast and was becoming like a blizzard. It was much colder than the previous days as well, most probably because of the wind, and the cloud was low too which made visibility almost non existent some of the time. It didn’t seem to faze Sam at all though and off we went to the training area again, where we were practicing a new way to turn, and then setting up a series of cones for us to race through. The course was a series of 5 cones each side going down the mountain and we had to weave in and out of them and through the finish line, trying to beat someone else on the other side. Not only that though, we had someone filming us from the bottom to put together a DVD for the day’s lessons. It was good fun and by the end of it I was going all the way down the mountain without falling over at all! Yesterday’s blue run sure made a huge difference and I was really starting to get the feel of it all and felt a lot more confident at every turn. After the races we made our way back to the top of the blue run for another go at the same run as yesterday. This time we could barely see anything from the top though with the snow flying everywhere and the clouds right in the mountains. We were all a bit unsure but Sam assured us it would be fine and once we got down the mountain a little more we would be sheltered from it all a bit and it would be a lot better. As we made our way down the mountain we realised he was right.

Looking at the cafe in the blizzardy conditions from the snow school only about 50 metres away.

The improvement on yesterdays run was immense and we made our way down with fewer stoppages, which meant longer sections for putting our turns together. I was really starting to get the hang of it too and was starting to pick up a bit of speed as well. I spent some of the time following Sam, so going along in the same line as him which I found helped a great deal and made it so much easier to actually get the turns going and stringing them together. It was really all coming together and I was starting to thoroughly enjoy it more and more. Not that I didn’t enjoy it already, it just made me love snowboarding! By the end of the run we were zooming down the mountain, but all completely buggered after it as well. That afternoon we were off to the nearby resort again for some more activities. They called it El Tarter by Night and it’s the only way you could get up on the mountain after it closes. We were greeted with hot chocolates in the café, and then we went out into the snow to start the activities. First up there was tubing tubing down the mountain, which involved a giant tractor tyre tube. You would start at the top of the small mountain they had for it, then run a few steps up the tube, give it a little kick, and then jump on like Superman as quickly as you could before the tube slid away from you and then slide your way down the mountain. It was pretty insane looking but after seeing a few people do it and just literally throwing yourself into it, it was easy. And what fun as well! What a feeling it was sliding down the mountain and having no control whatsoever over where you are going. Then as you are getting to the end, all you had to do to stop was throw yourself off the tube. Simple really, at least it was snow to land on.

Sliding down the mountain on a tractor tyre tube.

Next up there was these little boards you could sit on and with a handle that went between your legs to hold onto. You kicked off with your feet to gain speed the slid all the way to the bottom digging in your heels to steer. It didn’t look like much fun, but looks can be deceiving, and in this case they were. It was great fun, and was even better when the four of us could line up and race against each other to the bottom. After about an hour or so of that and as the sun started to go down, we headed into the restaurant where he got hotdogs, chips and beer for dinner. Simple, but satisfying. Later that night it was the snowboard party where they showed the video that was made during the day. It was really quite strange watching yourself snowboard down the mountain and it looks a hell of lot slower than it feels when you are out on the snow. It was good just to hang out and have a few drinks with the instructors and the others from our group as well. There was even a raffle where Elese and I nearly won a snowboard! We’d bought 5 tickets but without knowing who got the extra ticket, they gave us a sneaky extra one. There was 4 prizes, of which we won 2 of them (5 Jagerbombs at the bar and a free Pizza and beer at the restaurant) but unfortunately we were 1 ticket number off of winning the snowboard. Not to worry though, we still had a lot of fun which capped off a great day!

Today was Elese’s birthday, and somehow, the birthday fairies had found her the night before and decorated the room with balloons and streamers. How they found her no one will know but she was so glad that they found her. There was not much rest for us though as again we were out on the mountain again for our third day of snowboarding. Again we were feeling more confident and began by doing our turns like we had been the past couple of days and trying to link them together down the entire mountain. It looked a little bit daunting from the top of it, although it was the easiest run of the entire place! I just didn’t seem to be getting the hang of it though, and at the rate I was going I kept thinking I never would. Down the mountain I would go, falling over at pretty much every turn I tried, and it nearly got to the point where I wanted to just give up. I wasn’t going to let it beat me though, and then it was time for us to go down our very first blue run (the easiest of the runs down the mountain, other than the green training areas).

We made our way to the top of the blue run and very nervously we looked down as to where we were going to be headed. There was no point in waiting around though, so after some short instructions and our checkpoint we were going to from Sam, off we went. Sam at the front, Rob at the back, and the rest of us in between, we started making our way down, slowly but surely. The rules were simple, don’t pass the leader, and stop at the designated check point, and just try to link the turns together. It still wasn’t working for me, but it was highly exhilarating going down an actual snow run! The further we went down, the better and easier it got, and the less I started to fall over too! It was just like Sam had said earlier in the week, it all just comes together at one point and ‘clicks’. I don’t think I had quite got to that point, but I was definitely close and the further we went down the mountain, the better I got. We all did, and 2 hours later we were at the bottom of the mountain, staring back up the mountain marvel at where we had come from. It was a great feeling of accomplishment knowing where we had come from and how much we had improved in just a couple of hours.

Our day wasn’t over though, after the excitement of the snowboarding we then made our way over to the neighbouring resort, El Tarter, where we were going mushing with huskies! Elese was extremely excited about and it was going to be a great way to spend her birthday, albeit very different than any other birthday! We found where we needed to be and there was a number of huskies roaming around or sleeping in their little igloo homes. Elese just wanted to take them all home with her, but I wouldn’t let her, and I’m sure that the people who look after them might have had a problem with it as well.

We each got our own sled to drive with 3 or 4 huskies pulling us along in a row behind one of the trainers on his own sled and with about 10 huskies. He took us out through a track going through the mountains and up and down some hills. It was a really cool experience, and the huskies seemed to love it as well, although they did seem to tyre out quite quickly at times. We kept stopping every now and then though, so the huskies could catch their breath and so we could admire the views, and also pat and play with the huskies too. The trainer took us around a little course going up and down hills and going faster and faster each time in an effort to try and make us fall off the sled. We all went close a few times but luckily we all managed to hold it together and stay upright on the sleds, especially because the huskies never really stopped to relieve themselves, and would just do it on the run, whether it was weeing or pooing it didn’t matter! So very strange and very disgusting at the same time, but also a little bit funny!

The huskies that pulled me around through the snow

After about half an hour or so we were back at that the start and spent another 15 minutes patting the huskies and playing with them, and taking photos. They were just so much fun. One of my one even started gnawing at the sled, then as punishment he wasn’t allowed to go on the next run. Some might think that isn’t a punishment at all, but the huskies really enjoy it, and even when we had stopped for more than about a minute, they would all start barking and going crazy because they wanted to get running again. At the end of it all, we even got our husky and sled license because we didn’t fall off, which apparently not every gets, which could even be true as the people before us didn’t get given one when they had finished. So if anyone needs a husky sled driver, you know where to come now!

We had our first day of snowboarding down and it was back up the mountain again, this time with a bit more confidence. We didn’t have to get up quite so early which gave us a bit of a sleep in to rest our tired and sore bodies. It wasn’t much though before we were back in front of the snowboard school at 10AM and making our way back up the beginner slope to put into practise everything we had learnt the day before.

The snow had fallen a lot the previous day and made the conditions near perfect. The snow was soft and powdery, which meant it didn’t hurt so much to fall on, but it also made it a bit slower and easier to board through. The lesson for today was 3 hours straight through, no break in between. So we spent it getting up, and falling down, getting up, and falling down again and occasionally even boarding down the mountain at some points! We were definitely improving since the previous day’s efforts, but still weren’t close to being able to do it as well as we wanted. It was a struggle to get all the turning right, and for me, my speed was a problem as I would always end up going too fast and instead of turning, just start spinning and doing 360’s. On the plus side though, I was quite good at keeping on my feet when I definitely should have been falling in my ass. The instructors agreed and were often impressed how I managed to stay upright a number of times.

The 3 hours flew by, and after going down the mountain a number of times and falling down countless times, it was time to end the lesson. We weren’t really disheartened by the amount of falls we were having as Sam had told us we would need to fall over at least 300-400 times before we started to pick it up and get the hang of it. So the lesson was over, but we stayed out on the mountain for an extra hour or so to keep practising so we could hopefully stay on our feet longer in between all the falls which were bound to happen again and again. By the time we made our way down the mountain again, there was a definite improvement, although not much, but an improvement nonetheless.

That night, tired and sore as we were again, we headed down into the village to Fat Albert’s Bistro for all-you-can-eat rib night! All you can eat we did as well. For €14 each we got as many salads and breads as we could eat, all the ribs we wanted, and a round of beers. Not a bad deal at all. It was a small little place but quite full and they started by covering a few tables with food and sending each table up one by one to help themselves. We got our turn and came back with plates piled high and started digging into the ribby goodness. There was a few different types of ribs and all delicious. I think by the end I had eaten about 15 ribs and was struggling to get through it all. I was well shy of the record of 30-something though. I doubt many people could even get close to that!

Being up so early and being excited should never go together, but today they did, as we were about to learn how to snowboard. With the excitement though also went some nerves seeing as I had never done anything like it before and was going to slide down a snowy mountain with nothing but what is essentially a plank of wood attached to my feet. Like I was going to let thoughts like that stop me though, I was more than happy to get out there and start boarding!

We made our way down to the ski hire shop where we picked up some our boots and board, or skis for Lucas and then it was onto the gondola and up, and up the mountain. It was an all new experience for us, getting onto the gondola while it’s still moving, then making our way up the mountain on it, and then finally at the top the snow everywhere! It was nothing short of amazing! I had been told by a number of people how I was going to hate snow but I couldn’t see how. It was just so exciting and just looked like fun, fun, fun. We looked every which way we could and everywhere there was mountains and snow. The views were beautiful and I just stood there for a minute looking around and taking it all in.

Posing with my snowboard in the blizzardy conditions

Once we had admired the snow in all its glory, it was back to school for Elese, Kate and I while Lucas went off to reacquaint himself with skiing and explore the area. So we found out where we needed to be for snowboarding school and off we went to meet our instructor Sam. It turned out he normally taught advanced classes and had been boarding for about 15 years, so we were lucky to have him teaching us. Sam then took us up onto the green slope, which is the beginners slope, so that we could learn the basics. He also introduced to Rob, who was learning to be an instructor at 17 years of age and had only been snowboarding for 10 weeks.

We learnt the basics like how to get onto the board and then it wasn’t long before we were sliding, and falling, down the slope. To start with though we just had the one foot attached to the board and learning one-footed turns and getting into a rhythm of things. It took a bit of getting used to but we got there, then we moved up to having both feet attached to the board and doing the same type of turns. After an hour and a half we had finished the first half of the lessons and after a little bit more of practising by ourselves we headed over to the restaurant to have some food and get re-energised for the second half of our lesson in the afternoon.

After burgers for lunch it was back out to the mountain with the snow starting to fall and the wind picking up. My snow gear didn’t disappoint, and if anything, I was too warm! Back on the mountain we got back into our turns, but this time went slightly higher up the mountain. Slowly but surely we started to pick it up slightly, but not without spending a lot of time on our asses or flat on our faces in the snow. The snow wasn’t all that soft either so all the falls were starting to take their toll on our bodies, and this was only the first day! At the end of the lesson we practised a little more, but we were tired and sore so we made our way back to the apartment for a rest before heading out for dinner that night.

For once I was leaving for a holiday and it wasn’t some ridiculous hour in the morning that I had to be up to get to the airport. What a luxury it was too. We had the chance to finish packing, making sure we had everything we needed, have some breakfast, and even just sit around and relax a bit. Then it was away in the taxi, and off to Gatwick Airport to board our plane.

We were headed to Toulouse in France, where we would then have a 3 hour coach ride to the apartment in Soldeu, Andorra. There wasn’t much to the flight, like all flights really around Europe and only took about an hour or so. We even got fed on the plane which was great, but other than that it was completely uneventful.

Once we arrived at Toulouse it was still being built and as we walked for ages we didn’t see anyone other than the other people getting off the plane and we talking loudly, laughing and joking, until we came around a corner and there was men with machine guns standing there. Pretty standard stuff in European airports really, but it was a bit of a shock when we hadn’t see anyone until then and they were the first people we came across. On we went though and made our way through customs, and then it was out the airport and onto our coach for the lovely drive ahead of us.

The bus was much the same as the plane ride, uneventful. It got dark not long after we left and we didn’t even notice that we slowly climbing through the mountains. It wasn’t until we were high up and coming close to Soldeu that I noticed out the window that the sides of the roads were covered in snow and all up the mountains as well. It all become very real that we were in the heart of the mountains and that we were really going be surrounded by snow for the next week, touching it, playing in it, walking through it and eating it. It was going to be a great week.

Once we arrived into Soldeu we were greeted by a van to take our luggage up to our apartment, seeing as there was a big hill to walk up. It wasn’t that bad as we were used to walking up hill to get to our house anyway, but it was sure to get annoying by the end of the week, or maybe it would get easier. We could hope. So off our luggage went as we had to walk to the top. It was about 10 PM and after getting into our apartment and putting our luggage in, it was then back down to the bottom of the hill to get some pizza, as that was about the only place that was open, then it was back up the hill again. Maybe it was going to be a long week! At least then it was just eat and sleep so we could be up nice and early for school, snowboard school that is.