Let's Just Go

What a quirky location for an international trip, but a lot of personal firsts…

Let’s travel back in time to the 1990s. European bucket-and-spade holidays were all the rage – and a status symbol – and your author was starting secondary school at this point. Many school-mates were going away on trips to exotic sounding destinations – Zante, Crete, Benidorm, Gran Canaria. These holidays cost a lot of money though, and my family were not well-off. We made do with a trip to see family in the South of England each summer, and perhaps a day trip to London, Bath or York for some variety at another school holiday. Leaving the country wasn’t part of the plan.

However, your author very much wanted to leave the country, and see seas that only appear in dreams. Watching Willy Fog and his 80 Days Around The World, and reading the book, made me eager to explore worlds unknown to me at that point. Even more so, upon finding out that Mysterious Cities of Gold, the 1980s Anime, was actually JAPANESE, I also desperately wanted to add Japan as one destination to this world-explorer ticket, and see what the future looks like, because so many futuristic things came from there too.

The transition to secondary school was hurried and world-opening. From a tiny junior school with limited views to a large secondary schools with lofty ceilings and a multi-cornered library, I could see the possibility of new worlds that weren’t always open to a kid from a council estate. In an effort to make more new friends, I asked if it would be possible to attend some of the extracurricular school trips – heavily discounted – and with payment plans available for those on low incomes.

In the first year, we started a Duke of Edinburgh scheme project, regarding conservation of natural species – with the last task to be visiting Costa Rica and getting to see conservation efforts in action, whilst visiting the jungle ourselves – along with teachers and local guides. The total cost to each student’s parents would be £450 – which would have been a heck of a lot of money to my parents at that time.

I asked if I could get a job to try and help my parents with this money, but they said nothing. They each had their own priorities – my mother, with her new husband and his family, and my father, managing not being financially drained in paying child support, whilst on a low income, and his wife paying for both of them to survive from her low wage.

Without telling me, my mum wrote a letter to school asking to remove me from this project, and that I had become interested without parental permission to attend. I remember clearly the lead teacher taking me to one side and explaining this to me. However, I really wanted to still be a part of the project without going on the trip – and completed all of the work alongside my classmates, all of whom would be going. It was very bittersweet to hear their tales of adventure when they returned, glowing, and with new Jungle life experience, having seen many rare species on their trip, and experienced life in a rainforest.

I did not stop wanting to travel – this experience made me more keen to just go somewhere, if anything.

At school, an opportunity arose for a very very cheap, last minute trip to go skiing in Bulgaria. It was £150 for a week’s stay, including flights, transfers, ski and pole hire, course passes and food and accommodation at the ski resort. I had no idea if I could ski. But I wanted to go somewhere – anywhere – that was completely different to my own life. This presented that first opportunity. Costa Rica was too far, but would Bulgaria be better as it is closer?

I presented this to both parents separately. My father, being an adventurous soul at heart, but weighed down by the drudgery of life, immediately agreed. His daughter might get to see some of the world that we had been joking about since I was small – “you might even end up in the capital of Outer Mongolia, Ulaan Bataar! How exciting! I wonder what’s there?”

My mother absolutely disagreed, of course. On all grounds, but mainly that it meant I wasn’t in her sight for a week, and she would worry about what I was up to. And in a Soviet country? I could be kidnapped!

Over the course of a week or so, I managed to wear my mother down so much, by talking about it non-stop, and also getting my stepfather to agree that they could fund this trip – providing my father also added some money to the mix. My mother reluctantly agreed, but on the proviso I would call them from the payphone in the hotel every day to let them know how it was going. I was terrified and completely alight with the delight of it all.

I was also, terrible at skiing. I had never skied before and was put into Ski Kindergarten, and went on three trips to the local dry ski slope to practice before the trip. I fell over every time, and was absolutely not in control of what I was doing. I could step up the hill with skis perpendicular to the hill… then turn around and go down, which was fun, but in snowplough? no. And was it possible to stop? Also no, as I hadn’t got the hang of snowplough.

This was going to go so well, wasn’t it…

Departure day came around quickly. I packed a soft toy, a couple of tapes, my walkman, some cash in a wallet and some warm clothes, and was ready to go. Our salopettes and ski clothing was to be hired at the venue, so only warm basics and some jeans or a skirt for the evening was required. I also had no idea how to pack for such a holiday, being twelve years old at the time, but the walkman and tapes was the most important thing clearly.

We took a school coach down to Gatwick Airport where I had my first experiences of checking bags in, and going through to security checks. My friends and I sat in a small group with a teacher in the departure area, a little confused as to what happens next.

My family had visited a few airports – my stepfather had a great interest in aviation and so some weekends we would go to the outdoor viewing platform at Gatwick and look at the planes arriving and leaving. I never thought I might be able to get on one, any day.

My first time getting on a plane itself was interesting. I amazingly had a window seat and was fascinated to be able to see the wing and the world outside. My mother had made some very disparaging comments about Balkan Air who we were flying with – to the degree that the plane could quite easily break at any point, and she was expecting that to happen on this voyage.

We took off, people applauded, and the entire process of being in the air was so new to me – I had never felt anything other than being on solid earth before, so feeling this giant metal tube twist and turn and rise and fall was very spectacular – I did feel like it was an amusement park and this was an exhilarating ride, albeit one very difficult to get off from. The views outside were spectacular. I have always been fascinated by clouds and the sky – and getting to be a part of them, and seeing that the sun shines ABOVE the clouds was really rather wonderful.

When we entered some turbulence I was not feeling wonderful whilst seeing the airplane wings flex – or whilst watching the flaps changing for takeoff and landing – I distinctly remember asking someone who had been on a plane before “is the wing meant to move like that?” Now I know it definitely is, but before then, I imagined the plane as a rigid and inflexible being!

A meal was served on the plane despite us all being in economy – there was some pickled veg, meat, cheese and bread. None of the kids on the ski trip liked the pickled veg, and most of the meal went un-eaten. We also had tea, but without milk. This also confused a lot of the schoolchildren, as they were not used to this at all.

We landed in Sofia, late in the evening, and were told our coach connection over to the resort was running late due to snowfall. We were given time to wander around the airport, so after collecting our baggage and leaving this in a pile with a teacher, we went wandering.

I am not sure exactly how, as I knew 0 words in Russian or Bulgarian, but some friends and I managed to buy a cheese toastie and a lemonade from a cafe in the airport. We were told dinner would be served in the hotel when we got there, but the schoolteachers asked us to buy some food in the airport due to the lateness of the coach transfer.

A couple of hours later, the coach arrived. Our transfer was due to take 3 hours, but due to the snow, the coach arrival had taken 5 hours to get to us…

We of course then encountered the same issue traveling to our destination. We learned that Plovdiv airport would have been much closer, as the ski resort was in Pamporovo, close to the Greek border, in the Rhodope Mountains. We travelled for a couple of hours on a highway, and stopped at a service station so the coach driver could have a smoke. Someone at the service station offered us vodka. I am not sure if they offered the coach driver vodka, but it would perhaps have helped for later…

…

We pushed on and came to some windy mountain roads. The coach had to stop. There had been a traffic incident ahead. The snow was falling and the temperature had plummeted from Sofia – we were in negative temperatures here. As we waited for the incident to be resolved, the coach started slipping down the road very slowly, as we had parked on ice. The driver asked us all to get out of the coach, and stand out of the way. The road had rocks on one side, and a drop into the forest below on the other.

We waited for help. The coach needed to attach spike-chains to the wheels in order for us to make it up the mountain in such icy conditions. Would we make it?