It's an early start for us when we set off from the south west. We arrived at Hocksters before 6 am and immediately set about securing the luggage to his roof rack. It made a nice change to have someone else drive for me. The trip wasn't without incident, Hockster failed to see a dead badger lying in the road, which we went over at some not insignificant speeed......they don't half make a noise when they bang along under the car!. The rest of the journey was spent cruising at a good pace I believe some commercial aircraft take off at lower speeds 210 miles in 2 hours 40 minutes.
We soon met up with Danny and Lou, and a little later on Judith. Judith was an angel, taking a load of gear over to Borovets for us...Thanks J
In the customs shed at Plovdiv we thought we were going to wander straight to the head of the queue with our freshly filled in immigration forms. Bugger !!! they didn't bother collecting any at all it didn't really matter though, Hockster was straight through and had already collected all our luggage for us
The coach transfer was possibly the slowest I have ever been on. As we approached bends, I actually thought he was going to stop. Cue much laughter from the passengers ie: "Phil, are we there yet my legs are stiff?", "No Robyn, we're not. You start walking and we'll catch you up!"
On our arrival at the Murgavets hotel, we were given a room on the top floor. This turned out to be not so good. The kids in the next room whined nearly every night seemingly for nothing as their parents ignored them. The room itself was hot, very hot. We turned off the radiator and opened the door to let some cool air in. I'd like to thank the selfish ******* that fell out of the new white hart every night shouting and singing, and waking the guests in the Murgavets up. The new white hart bills itself as "The British pub". We went in briefly one night, took a look at the menu, and decided we could try "British" food when we got home. Benidorm anyone? I have a suggestion. If you find yourself unable to survive without english breakfast, cottage pie, guinness, bacardi breezers and sky sport, why not try holidaying in Blackpool? We really think the Bulgarians are making a rod for their own back with this. In a few years, no one will want to go anymore except the drink/fight/puke/football shirt wearing crowd, give us a local mehana every time.
The skiing was OK on the first day, despite the Hockster staying up drinking til 4:30 am. We were much more sensible going to bed at 2:30 Danny and I were speculating that an inch or so of snow would be just perfect. It started to snow, and didn't really stop for 2 days. Lisa clicked with her new blades, and we got on with some steeper faster stuff. Lisa still needs to go a little faster, but we didn't have anyone we could pay for that advice, so she won't listen to it, any takers? normally we have to pay at least a tenner an hour before she will take it on board........sorry Lisa wait til you see this years video.
The middle of the week was very cold. It was rumoured to be -28c at the tower one morning. This is not good for electonics, or batteries, and we didn't get any footage for the mid section of the week. Lisa Dan and I decided to do the back blue, and really hammer it. Joy of joys, virgin snow. It was something special to be the first people on the new snow. Sadly the joy soon dissipated. Had we not been so giddy about the deserted piste, we might have stopped to wonder why it was deserted. The draglift was out of action. Luckily for us, there was a net across the piste down to the 2 man chair or we'd have carried on to that. That chair was out of action too. Nothing for it then! time to start walking. It's not far, as those of you that know this slope can attest. Try doing it in a foot of fresh powder snow, in skiboots, carrying your own skis, when it's minus 20 something celsius. It was alternately hot/cold. We were knackered when we got to the little bar in the middle.
We left our skis for the week at the Markony ski school. It was a shame Andrea wasn't there, but lovely to catch up with Pete and Ilya (sp). This is their second season and it looks like things are taking off for them. I'm not surprised to be honest, the level of care they were treating their clients to when we arrived on Sunday morning was nice to see. None of this "what size are you? here, wear these and bugger off" attitude. Danny took a lesson with Pete (who incidentally has done some video for us) 4 hours personal tuition for £40 !!! beat that for quality and value. He was impressed with the service, going so far as to say "if it is any more expensive to book your ski packs with the Markony ski school it would be worth every penny"......ask him yourselves.
Food in the Murgavets was as usual, sometimes fantastic, sometime mediocre, but always something to eat. Prices have gone up on the slopes, and in some bars, but not everywhere. You pays your money, you takes your choice. One exception was the red sun chinese restaurant. We don't go abroad to eat "foreign" food (ie foreign to the country you are visiting), but the meal we had last time was fantastic, as was the one we had this time. The price? last year a meal for two cost us 39 Lev. This year a meal for three cost us 60 lev, hardly inflation !
Towards the end of the week, the Hockster managed to get away from the kids (one of them ours, thanks Mike ). He wanted to know if he was up to doing a red. we took him to the red that leads to the top of the wall. "OK then off you go"... jeesh! he was off! I flew after him. As this was the end of the week, the newbies had migrated to the more serious slopes. There was a line of beginners stood wondering if they could make it down the track that leads back down to the green (it had been snowploughed/boarded to hell). They looked like birds on a wire stood in a line Mike had nowhere to go except for a small gap between them. He's not an inconsiderate skier and tried his best not to alarm them. He shot through this gap, only to be confronted by another crowd of newbies all with sticks in the air ready to take someones eye out. Unable to scrub enough speed off, and unable to get round this tightly knotted bunch, he did the only thing he could do and promptly disappeared into a ditch at the side of the piste. I laughed so hard I nearly puked. Which reminds me. Lisa lent me her blades to try. They turn on a sixpence. Just as I got to the bottom of the nursery slope where we'd stopped for choccy brandy, I said something like "this is bloody easy", and promptly fell flat on my harris nearly taking out a skier who'd heard me. He laughed his head off as I apologised for knocking his skis (he wasn't in them).
Danny and I found out about the new red run from Peter Todorov from the Interski shop under the Markony hotel. We went up to give it a try. How Dan makes a living as a taxi driver is beyond me, he has no sense of direction He took us down the wrong slope, and in doing so, we did a black as well An excellent day. I said to lisa that night that it wouldn't matter if I didn't ski again that week as I'd had the best days skiing ever. How wrong I was. Two days later, Mike came down this red with me. Mike (aka the Hockster) came with us last year, and got in 4 days skiing, his first time. He had taken a couple of days off to mollycoddle the whining kids, so was only on his 7th or 8th day of skiing. He sailed down the red faultlessly. Not a trip or stumble from top to bottom. He did find it difficult on his legs (burning thighs), but don't we all? Well done mate I'm chuffed for you.
All in all, another fantastic holiday. Some minor niggles such as the white hart being noisy, the maid trying to turf us out of bed on Saturday morning (that cost her her tip) and babies crying. We seemed doomed to listen to bloody babies screaming on this trip, on the plane on the way out, in the hotel, and then again on the bloody plane home. I'm not going to start another debate about the rights and wrongs of taking babies, but suffice to say we wouldn't have had the nerve to take the looks the couple with this screaming child were getting.
This holiday reaffirmed our opinion on the Pamps/Borovets debate. In our opinion, Pamporovo is better skiing, and Borovets is the better resort. One thing however, a few words of warning to the people developing the Bulgarian resorts. You need to invest in more lifts/chairs/gondalas/pistes NOW !!!!!!!! did you hear that? I said NOW!!!!!!!!! building hotels with thousands of bedrooms may well provide local employment and income, but if you don't do something with the pistes/lifts/queues it will dry up soon. It's not rocket science guys, if the pistes are getting crowded now how do you think they will be when another 5,000-10,000 people are there each week? Similarly, do you want your resort to turn into magaluf with snow? no? then stop pandering to the "here we go" crowd. Yes you will make money in the short term, but it won't last.

Phil Cross