The weather had turned today without warning from the sunny day yesterday. I had agreed with Phil and Erwin to meet them early in order to go skiing on one of the Olympic slopes at Bjelasnica. Sarajevo is very proud to have hosted the 1984 winter Olympics and there are endless reminders about this around the city. Erwin was a Dutch guy who was travelling round Europe with his snowboard in searching for the best of the cheap ski slopes - and the former Yugoslavia republics are renowned for their cheap if somewhat slapdash ski resorts.

Of course the bus that we were told left for the ski fields never materialised and so we had to get a taxi to drive us the 25 or so kilometres to Bjelasnica. The weather was foul and raining in Sarajevo, our hopes being that we would get above the cloud and into bright sunshine on the slopes. Sadly this didn't materialise and we arrived at a rather "under construction" Bjelasnica ski station. There were only a handful of people on the slopes and only one ski lift open - allowing us access to three runs, but we were determined to make the most of it. We found some sort of rental shop who also sold us our ski pass for an amazing 30KM (15 euros) all included and trudged off to the ski slopes.

Despite the weather and lack of runs it was great to be skiing in Sarajevo with such good company. I made a rather useless remark that this felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity to be skiing here. Erwin with a somewhat black sense of humour reminded me that it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity if I was to accidentally run off piste into the heavily mined forests either side of the pistes! The ski resort has only opened recently due to the heavy mining of the area during the war and it was still not safe to venture off the ski slopes.

We spent the best part of the day going up and down stopping only for a brief lunch. By 3.30pm I was knackered and ready to go home. The ski hire was somewhat ancient and decrepit and my boots were making my shins and ankles ache. The man at the rental shop had seemed very keen to inform me that my skis were Alberto Tomba's (the Italian Olympic skier) - I wasn't sure if her meant they were the smae brand as that used by "Tomba la bomba" or whether they were his actual skis. Either way they could well have dated back to the mid eighties, but the did their job.

Returning at 5pm we headed off with some other guys from the hostel back to see Brahim the "terrorist" at the Turkish cafe for some relaxing apres ski before heading out for supper and a few of Sarajevo's bars. I returned to my bed knackered and decided that I would sleep in.

On the Olympic slopes with Alberto Tomba's skis and decrepit ski boots!