SIX HUNDRED BLIPS!

Not only have I made it to six hundred, but nearly seven weeks in, I've made it up to the mountains. Hangovers and poor planning have prevented me from getting there sooner, but it was cool!

As we ascended a couple of thousand metres to the Malaya Almatinka valley by car - (we got some fella in a fairly old vauxhall to take us up - his gearbox was stinking!) I thought I was inappropriately dressed for what I thought would be considerably colder weather. In fact, it was really pleasant and it wasn't cold at all. His car was struggling with the dirt-track - he didn't know where he was going but wanted to carry on anyway. We didn't know how far it was to the top (Chimbulak) and so we gave up and got out for a walk. He saw this as an opportunity to crank up the volume on his in-car sound system and in so doing, took away the peace and tranquility of the moment! So we soon ditched him, had a pit stop for some shashlyk and chai before making our way down to Medeu on foot, which is home to a rather huge outdoor ice rink, a soviet gem from 1972. Unfortunately it's closed for renovation so skating was out. We bused it back to town on the very crowded no.6, stopping along the way, to let people on with their five-litre bottles of fresh, spring water that they'd been out to get!

Skiing is coming to an end now (although there was a fluttering of snow when I was up there) but I look forward to going back (in a 4WD) to the resort of Chimbulak on another day.

...Don't think I get a balloon for 600 do I?