Snowboarding Andorra

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After a few days reorganising our lives again in Wales we headed off to Bristol in the wee hours for our early morning departure to Toulouse. From here we took a four hour bus drive up into the Pyrenees to the tiny country of Andorra...known pretty much soley for its snow resorts and tax free shopping. The country only covers and area of around 480 square kilometres with a population of 82,000 and interestingly the highest life expectancy in the world (83.52 years...thanks Wikipedia)!! Very very interesting given the fact that just about the entire population seems to enjoy a cigarette or two (maybe that was just the tourists taking advantage of the low prices??).

Not too much to say really....had a fantastic week snowboarding. Jas starting from scratch and Kirst reliving her youthful times on the Aussie slopes. Needless to say by the end of the week Kirst's cautious snowboarding style had been surpassed by Jason's determination to look cool and he was giving her lessons! We had one big dump of snow on the second last night which was lots of fun but all in all the conditions were ok for our experience level....a bit patchy in places but pretty much the same as Australian conditions so we felt right at home. I would be cautious taking your own gear there as we were forced on occasions to hop a few rocks!

This was sadly our last big trip with Karen and Mick as they are off on the eurorail for five weeks and will then head back to Australia. We have really enjoyed having extra company on our recent holidays and we will miss having them around for future adventures. They opted for the more traditional skis....Karen drawing on experience on the slopes way back in highschool and Mick donning skis for the first time. He did a great job and after a few days of chicken wings and snow plows was carving up the slopes with the best of them! (nearly...)

Amazingly given our tight muscles and lack of recent snow sport experience we managed to escape without major injury. There were a couple of spectacular falls on the one day we got to board in fresh powder (amazing how much more confident you become once the ground is a bit softer!) and Kirst was cleaned up on the last day by a crazy out of control young Frenchman which resulted in severe winding and bruised ribs but nothing broken (Jas saw the whole event and predicted many more injuries....Kirst however didn't see a thing!). Hopefully this was the first of many trips to the snow to improve our skills and Kirst is still ambiciously hoping to get Jas on the cross-country skis at some stage (maybe Lake Bakail in Russia but we'll wait and see).

Arrived back in Wales very tired and a little stiff....more days of rest and washing in preparation for our trip to Russia, Mongolia and China.

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