When I woke up I had to tiptoe around the room because Rachael was still sleeping. I was meeting Amy outside a gas station at 7:15 to go to the bus station. I was running a little late because I underestimated how slow I was going to be in the morning, too tired, and I ended up leaving the house at 7:15... oops! And to make matters worse, I forgot my lunch on the table.. but luckily when I was getting on the elevator Mila was awake and reminded me of. So I rode the elevator down, and rushed back up the stairs, apologizing multiple times that I had forgotten in. I then ran to meet Amy at the gas station and she was leaving right when I got there. The un-perfect timing couldn't have worked out any better.
At the gas station, Amy and I waited for about 10 more minutes for Juan and Adam to show up. From there we took a taxi to the bus station, bought our tickets and boarded the bus. When we were on the bus, Juan called Jasmine asking where she was, and she was just leaving her house at 7:50... the bus left at 8. Luckily for her, German was nice enough to pick her up and drive her to the mountain. He was already going there with Ellie, a teacher at an English school, and bringing all of our gear to the hill.
We arrived at the mountain at about 9 am and from there we changed into all of our snow gear. We walked to buy our tickets and took the gondola up. Lucky for us it was not that busy (according to German) because it was a Friday. I thought it was pretty busy though because there were a lot of kids, but they didn't have school due to exams.
When we got to the top of the hill, we took another chair lift to the middle of the mountain, not to the peek. From there we enjoyed the day :) I had NO falls, or wipe outs!
We met up for lunch in the chalet and enjoyed that and then Adam, Amy, German, Ellie and I went on an adventure. We were going to view Africa from the mountain! We had to take a chair lift to the middle of the mountain, ski over to the T-bar and ride that up.
The dreaded T-bar. When I found out that we had to take that up, I instantly became pissed because I cannot do it for the life of me. It is seriously impossible for snowboarders, I swear. Because I have no idea how to use it, because I rarely do, I attempted to grab onto the pole in the middle, and sit sideways on one side of the T. Eventually by butt slipped off and I was hanging on for dear life. I made it probably about 1/8 of the way up and fell off because of how much it was pulling me. I sat in the snow for about 5 minutes ready to just give up, but I really wanted to see the view so I unstrapped, walked back down the hill (exhausting) and tried again. This time I told the worker that I needed help and he attempted to explain to me that I needed to put the bar between my legs. He helped me put it there and I was off. It worked for about half the way and then all of a sudden it was digging into my leg bone. SO painful! I was on the verge of tears. I tried to readjust and switch my weight but it wouldn't get rid of the pain and I was fearful that I would fall off again and have to go all the way back down. ** Once you are off the T-bar, you have to go to the bottom because they are on a bungee type cord system where they go to the top (unreachable) and stay there if nobody is riding on it ** Finally I had reached the top and I saw my group waiting for me and cheering. But it wasn't over yet.
When I released the T-bar, I was on pure ice and I could not catch a grip to slide over to my group. I did a summersault, and slid down the hill board first on my back. There was a man who was on skis that must have fallen and I was headed straight towards him. Luckily he noticed and got out of the way just on time. Somehow I ended up on my stomach and I was grabbing for the snow trying to stop myself. I was scared for my life that I was going to fall to my death. Finally, an angel must have came down and saved me because I came to a halt. About 75 feet from my group at the top. It was one of the most dramatic things I have ever experienced. When I stopped, everyone was screaming down to me to see if I was okay, and luckily I was no hurt, just a ton of bruises. From there, I had to walk all the way back up and to the right to go continue on with this journey. I unstrapped my board and began trekking up. The hill was so steep. It was a red, which translates to black diamonds in America. My guess was that it was about 70 to 80 degrees and it was COMPLETE ice. It was very difficult for me to walk up the hill and I was stumbling the majority of the time, and even would have to take a few steps backwards to catch my balance. Not only did I have to walk, but so did the rest of my group, but they had it easy and had to walk horizontally across the hill. They even were slipping down!
When I finally reached the top, I plopped down on the ground and laid down. I was shaking for the next 10 minutes because I was so scared and shocked and shaken up. German was concerned that I needed to go to the hospital but I insisted that I was okay. I drank some water and added some sugar to my blood stream and after resting I was feeling a little bit better. My head kind of hurt, probably because I had hit it and looking back, I am guessing that I had a minor (or half of a) concussion. From there, Amy and I decided not to continue on. We were too scared and did not feel safe and didn't feel it was worth it. As disappointed as I was, we could still see a glimpse of Africa from where we were. Amy and I just sat around and did a photo shoot and had some fun while we were building up the guts to go down the hill!
When we finally decided it was time to go down after hanging out for about 45 minutes, I slid down the whole way on my butt with my board on my lap. I figured I had done it once before, I could do it again! Amy slid on her board's edge for part of the way but it got too icy and she resorted to sliding down like an penguin with me!
When we made it to an area that was reasonable to board on, we strapped in and attempted to board down. It was too icy so we laid on our backs and slid down some more. It was really fun! Eventually got to a hill that was a blue, same as a blue square in America, and we boarded down to the chalet. We met up with Juan and Jasmine there (they didn't go because they are still learning how to ski.. smart people!) and we told them about my spill. They were thankful that they didn't go. We ordered some fries to calm us down after that scary ride down and then we stuck to blues and greens the rest of the day.
When it was time to go, you have the option of riding down in the gondola, which closes at 5, or riding down a super long trail to the bottom. We wanted to ride down the trail but we couldn't find it, and it was 5:00 so we decided to just take the gondola down. That is our only regret of the day, not finding that trail! We met up with everyone at the bottom and walked to German's car to get our shoes. From there we had to take all of our stuff from the car to the bus to go home. We put our boards under the bus, so that was very easy!
When we got back to Granada, we had to take the city bus with all our equipment back to the rental shop and was that ever an adventure! The bus was crammed full and everyone was scared that we were going to poke their eyes out with our boards and skis. No injuries occurred! We returned our equipment, I got my passport back and we walked home.
It was a lazy evening for me, and I had to rest up for tomorrow, hiking! Overall, it was a great day, and a once in a life time experience! And the views were breathtaking!!
:)
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