Skiing.... finally
So, this year has started off a little bit differently. I was sitting at home feeling sick and sorry for myself after a 4 week stint at Canga (ok, that bit wasn’t so different) over xmas. But then it was off to snow, finally! After 4 years in Europe I was at last getting to the Alps for some decent skiing action. One of the aussie guys at Canga had mentioned one night down at the bar (might have been New Year’s Eve, I can’t remember) that he was going skiing for 2 weeks in his break and I just said maaaaate. I’ll be there.
He’d picked Les 3 Vallées, purportedly the largest ski area in the world, and of the three valleys, a town called Méribel. Possibly (ok definitely) not the cheapest location, but then hey if I’m only going to be going skiing once every 4 years I probably don’t need to worry about that. So the last few days at Canga I managed to book a flight and a few days later in Mossley I booked myself a hotel. And a few days after that I was on the plane (as you will see this constitutes considerable forward planning for me so far for 2011).
I’d almost forgotten how much I love to ski. Turns out I also quite like to party. There was an amazing place called La Folie Douce (roughly translated as the sweet madness) which turned into something of a rave party in the middle of a run – people were dancing on the table in their ski boots and that is no mean feat let me tell you. I can barely walk in the things. Unfortunately we got into it just a little bit too much and ended up missing the last ski lift home, necessitating a rather long and painfully expensive bus journey back to our own valley.
Still, all in all a great trip. My only injury turned out to be fondue burn (bit embarrassing – I tried to eat the meat off the fork that had just come out of the burning oil). The food was great, the people were nice, everything to make me want to go back as soon as possible.
Saturday afternoon I was on the train home from the airport when I received a call from our travel administrator... my flight the next morning had been cancelled. Huh? I said. Cancelled. Huh?
Turned out there was a little bit of a fuss in at Canga (I’d say that I miss all the fun, but that wouldn’t be true – in fact it would be a rare fortnight without something extraordinary happening, although this was a bit more even so) and so most people had been evacuated. Some of the local people were upset that there weren’t enough jobs on offer, and our catering and housekeeping staff went out on strike in sympathy (something like that anyway, I never did quite get to the bottom of the story). As a result, the hotels in Conakry were chockers with the people who had been evacuated and so everyone who was due to have come in country that week had been delayed.
Hmm, ok, no problem I thought, settling in to a bottle or 3 of wine with my friend next door, another week’s break - I can deal with that. Except that a few hours later I received a text saying no, actually my flight was reinstated, they needed me in Conakry. So there I was at about 11pm flinging ski clothes out of my suitcase and hunting down clothes suitable for 30 degrees in the humidity after way too much red wine! I ended up packing two pairs of togs (got the essentials ok) and not enough shirts or shampoo because as it turned out I am now staying 5 weeks in Conakry instead of the few days I first thought.
More to come...
