Bridge over troubled water – early end to the season

What a bizarre end to the season! After struggling for snow for most of the season we had started to enjoy the sunshine and spring temperatures. Teaching beginners was more like teaching water skiing but the social side was good.

And then we got snow – lots of it! We had one day of rain (which wasn’t so much fun to teach in) followed by a day of constant snow. Yippee! The visibility was pants but everyone was happy.

That evening cases of coronovirus in Bulgaria were announced and the pubs and restaurants were forced to close. The supermarkets and banks were allowed to remain open and there was confusion over ski hire shops. I was worried about food and wanted to go grocery shopping, while Pete was in a cold sweat about the bars being closed!

Bizarrely the ski lifts remained open and on Sunday it snowed a whole heap more. Everyone (well the Brits and Bulgarians who were the only nationalities left in the resort) headed up the mountain on Monday to enjoy the best conditions of the season. The powder was amazing!

We had no lessons and even our boss came to join us.

At lunchtime we skied down to find a chairlift closed, so we went to another. That too was closed. Weird! That’s when we discovered that at 12pm they had closed the resort. We made our way down the ski road with all the other disappointed skiers and boarders. It was the right decision – just three and a half days later than it should have been. This meant lots more Brits had come out to Bansko over the weekend bringing more risk of the virus to the town. The Bulgarians were in a panic and the few people who ventured out started to wear masks and gloves.

That evening things got even more strange. We met our fellow instructors for a BBQ but then the police turned up and said there were too many of us together and it wasn’t allowed. As we’d spent all season together already, every day fist pumping, sharing hip flasks etc we decided to move indoors. That evening, following three cases of the coronovirus in Bansko, the town was put into quarantine for 14 days and you could no longer come in or out of the town. Foreign nationals were given 24 hours to comply.

We started to question our previous decision to stay until our flight on 6 April. What if later Bulgaria closed its borders, and then the UK and then the Isle of Man? We could be stuck for months! We don’t want to put our parents at risk but our tennants aren’t moving out until 6 April. And then Pete’s parents came up with a plan. They could drop their mobile home off at the airport with some food and we could be nomads for our 14 days self isolation period.

Ok, now how to get out of Bansko? The British embassy were working with the Ministry of the Interior to bus out all British nationals for their flights. So we packed up quick and walked 1.5km to the pick up point with our luggage. After a 5 hour wait with about 150 others, it became obvious that we weren’t going to leave that day.

The buses had to unload and the consulate guys stepped in to put everyone in groups of departure date. As we didn’t have a flight for two days we were sent home. It was lovely dragging our luggage back up the 1.5km hill to our apartment.

So for two days we went walking in the forest and mountains. Pete found us all the mountain bike trails in case we can return in the summer. We are lucky our apartment is right on the edge of the forest so it was easy to escape.

The goregous groomed pistes teasing us as they glistened in the sunshine.

We did our best to eat all the food I had made us buy and we fed the stray cats and dogs with the leftovers. And then it was our turn. We were told to meet at 5.30am at a hotel 3km away. Our suitcase wheels couldn’t cope with the Bulgarian roads and have worn bare but we made it, just. I’m glad they didn’t test our temperatures straight after the walk – this didn’t happen until we got to the airport.

Now the officials and police had three days of practice, the boarding of the bus was quite a smooth process once they’d found you on the list from the Embassy. At the Bansko border the bus was sprayed with disinfectant.

We were treated to a police escort the whole way to the airport. We made it in record time of 2 hours and 15 minutes.

We sat for six hours in quarantine in the airport waiting for our Easy Jet flight to Gatwick. We were separated from the rest of the airport but at least we had toilets and a small shop for drinks. The earlier people were held on a bus for 6 hours! Unfortunately a four hour delay to our flight meant we landed with half an hour until our Isle of Man flight was to take off. No chance! We are now holed up in an airport hotel for two days as we can’t get another flight until Sunday evening.

So this wasn’t the end of the season as we had planned. We left leaving 17 days earlier than expected, with heavy hearts. Everyone in Bansko made us feel welcome and we had some great fun. We would have liked to stay longer but wanted to be on home ground to help friends and family if they need us. We obviously won’t be seeing anyone for a couple of weeks yet – perhaps only on FaceTime;-) but at least we know we are near.