OH MY GOD WE ARE ADDICTED TO SKIING!!!!!!! (and 4 star hotels!!! and ski instuctors called Pablo!)

We have just had one of the best weeks EVER!!! So much has happened, so we will start at the beginning....

....last friday night we were snuggled up in our bunkbeds in the hostel in the middle of nowhere and outside it was blowing a gale and snowing hard, brrr. However, despite freezing our extremities off, Sophie jumped out of bed and dragged Andrew out too, had a shower and washed her hair, and was in the process of drying it, when Andrew by chance looked at his watch, only to discover that it was 3.30am..... oops! Sophie was so excited that she looked at the wrong time - she woke up at 6am British time, doh. So we duely went back to bed for a few hrs, befre getting up at the proper time.

So, off we trundled in the van, with Axel, a Belgian ski instructor, who is working in Las Lenas for the season. We were pretty lucky to be able to get to Las Lenas that morning, cos as we said, there was a big storm the previous night, and it turned out that it had deposited 40 INCHES OF SNOW!!! and the road to the resort had been closed in the night cos there were so many accidents. It was a very hairy journey, the road was pure ice, there were cars parked diagonally across the road, by the side of the road were abandoned cars literally buried up to there roofs in snow!! However, despite all this carnage, we made it to Las Lenas without snow chains on! miraculous!

We were absolutely freezing when we got there, Sophie nearly passed out in the loo cos she was so cold and was thankful when a local dog snuggled up to her! Even Andrews hands were numb! But then, we found our hotel .... WOW. Absolutely fabulous! We had doors opened for us, our bags carried, and even got driven around the resort in the hotels brand new 4 x 4 pick up truck! (they also put our ski bots on and took them off for us!) We both felt like princesses! The room was big and really warm, the bathroom was like a sauna, yum! We went to the 5 star hotel over the road to hire our skis and booked a weeks worth of private ski lessons.

We hit the slopes at 2pm that day with our wonderul, fabulous, simply amazing ski instuctor Pablo! (by the way our hotel was literally right on the slopes, we skied out and about 15m away was a chair lift!) We first had to master how to walk in the flippin boots! which was hard work! But by the end of the lesson we were safely navigating our way down the green runs. We were very proud of ourselves! That night we went to the hotel bar for free champagne and nibbles, very nice! We then had dinner, which was delicious, as it was every single night! The waiters/waitresses were ace and we had our own table all week - love it!

The Sunday started off as more of the same, just getting to grips with the learner slopes. We were doin well, and Andrew was mastering going backwards quite competantly! aswell as experiencing a little off-piste action! (neither intentional! but Pablo rescued him!), however, at the end of the lesson, Pablo took us down a blue run; we pooed ourselves. We both fell over, and were abit scared, particularly as on return to our hotel, we noticed that the guy in the room opposite had his leg in plaster up to his hip! eek! However, on the third day we tackled Minerva 1, a long, busy blue run, which we managed to get down safely first time, no falls! But on our second run, Andrew went straight into the back of Sophie and managed to bend one of her ski poles into a 90 dgree angle! oops. Thankfully we managed to swap the pole at the rental place without charge!

Day 5 and Pablo took us down the longest run in South America (the second longest in America). It took about 3/4 of an hr to get up to the start, which was on top of a bloody great mountain! The start of the run was red!! Sophie nearly had a heart attack and fell over straight away! It was absolutely knackering, and took an hr to get down. Andrew had a whale of a time, but Sophie looked like she was about to cry! We stuck to Minerva the rest of that day!

Day 6, and despite Sophie being so tired that she tried to put her ski boots on the wrong feet (the guy helping her put them on also failed to notice i must add!), we decided to do the big run with Pablo again. We were alot more confident, and tackled more of the red runs as we went down, this time with smiles on our faces!

Day seven, and Pablo took us down 3 more red runs, with no falls! He also taught us how to spin round on our skis so we could ski backwards! Andrew was far more successful at this than Sophie, as he was well practiced at going backwards! Unfortunately, this was our last lesson with Pablo, he was simply great - we didn?t expect to achieve anything like what we did! He is only doing these lessons til the peak season kicks in, then he is one of only 15 instructors who does all the off-piste, back country heli-skiing and alike - apparantly, he is booked up already! He also snowboards, and competed at world cup level boarding in Super G, GS and Slalom. He also works at a resort in Utah, so we might have to visit him at some point!

Our last day, and we started badly. On the first red run Sophie ended up falling over, losing both skis, both poles and whizzing down the steep hill on her back, head first for about 10 meters! Ouch. Thankfully a lovely lady came to her rescue and helped her get her equipment restored to its rightful place and get down the remainder of the hill in one piece! She now has a scratched thumb and a ski shaped bruise on her arse to show for it! Then it was Andrew`s turn - a woman skied over the front of his skis and he went flying, this time bending one of his own poles! Thankfully it wasn`t beyond repair this time, and we bent it back into the place and carried on! The rest of the day went smoothly thankfully, Andrew tackled loads of red runs, but Sophie with her war wounds, decided to stick to the blue ones!

Then, unfortunatley, it was time to leave Las Lenas; we nearly cried! It was such a wicked week - it is gonna be bloody hard going back to backpacking after our week of luxury! Rubbish, oh well. So, now we are back in Malargue, this time staying at a far more central hostel called Bambi hotel! (with a lovely old man in charge, who knocked 10 pesos off the price for us, bless him) We have a bus back to Buenos Aires later today, which will get us back to the capital tomorrow morning. We have booked in to a hostel this time - not taking any chances with mold covered ceilings and rooms that smell of mushrooms!

In conclusion, we will definately be going skiing again! So better get practising Doug, Ian and Mark, cos we will kick your asses!!!!!