Endless powder....or not.

I think I woke up around 5:30am. In fact, I'm fairy sure it was then, as I remember it was an incoming text or call on Dex's phone that did it - one of the problems of mobile phones working in different timezones being that you get messages about Saturday night beers at 7am... (sorry I couldn't make it, Dunc, but Fulham's a bit of a stretch for me at the best of times...) So, breakfast in the same bar/restaurant as the night before, with the placid breakfast atmosphere complemented by the hard house music they'd decided to put on the sound system. Neil and Seb, the guides, drifted in shortly after Dex and I. They had, apparently, both woken up around 3am, so I guess five thirty could have been worse, on balance. Breakfast wasn't too bad, really, all things considered. We saw the first green...well, anything since we arrived: there were some slices of apple on offer. There were also slices of omelette and slices of pancake containing some sort of sweet minced meat and rice. Neil had his with honey before I mentioned they were actually filled with beef, but it still seemed to taste okay. Oh, there was also a big tray of chunks of fried or baked salmon. From now on, any time I mention food, let's take the salmon as read, shall we?

So, as had been feared the previous night, the winds were high this morning so no helicopters were going up. There was a possibility for this afternoon, but Neil thought it best to can it for today. One of the things I'm learning about heliboarding is that you have to be patient, and not get stressed if it's not happening. Instead, we went to a local resort for a bit of avalanche training. Well, I say 'resort' – there was one t-bar, for which you had to buy individual tickets. It was icy, nasty, brown, and possibly the worst slope I've ever been on. Not exactly the 'endless powder' advertised, but there we go. Everyone is being very philosophical about the weather, and I realise that it's best to be positive, as everyone's in the same boat. To be honest, I think if anyone moaned, it would rapidly become tedious. The view was like nothing I've seen before, though. The slopes looked over the sea, with multiple container ships, all gently rusting. At some point, this must have been a mighty industrial port, but clearly the salmon stocks have dropped off, or something. So, we used the first three of our five tickets doing the same slope, then stopped at the top for some avalanche training. This consisted of Seb and Neil burying tranceivers, then the rest of us hooning off into the trees to try and locate said receivers. There's definitely a knack to it, and by our fourth attempt, we were getting reasonably good at it. I still hope never to have to use it, though.

So, after another couple of final runs, we left there – on our chinzy bus – and headed to the 'hot springs'. This was basically two pools full of mildly-sulphorus hot water and fat Russians in speedos and other unflattering apparel. So, we spent an hour gently simmering and making 'don't fancy yours much' remarks as yet another elephantine local entered the water. It's amazing how they manage to take something that could be quite quaint and interesting and make it really ugly. I went to some hot springs in Chile and they were wonderful – natural rockpools with wooden changing rooms suspended above them and entry via ladder. The tin fence round this one was the least of the problems... We capped this off with a late lunch in a bar/restaurant (yes another one) along the road. This one had gold tablecloths, balloons tied to the light fittings, and a karaoke machine. We were treated to more hard house, interspersed with some Roxette. Curious. Oh yes, we also had an amusing currency-haggle when it came to pay. There was some debate about who owed what and it quickly became complicated. Eventually, somebody pointed out the argument was over about sixty pence, and everyone was a lot more generous after that

And so back to the hotel. The sun has come out, and everything looks a little less drab, now. You can also see some of the volcanoes on the horizon, and they are, frankly stunning. We hope to slide down some of these tomorrow. For now, though, dinner is at eight, and I need to take a shower to wash off my previous shower (which, we realised, was the same sulphorous water as in the pool)

Oh, I clocked my first bronze statue of Lenin today. Must be one of the few that hasn't been carted off and melted down.