Bunny Hills

North Africa has snow-capped mountains sandwiched between the ocean and the desert. Last summer, when most of the snow had melted, I climbed the highest peak. As of this week, I have also skied in North Africa. So skiing now joins the list of things I’ve done in Africa but not in America, along with owning a cell phone.

To understand this next part, refer to the large picture below.

The yellow circle does not indicate a Waldo sighting; it indicates a child who is ascending a ski lift. You will notice some important things here. First, the individual ascending is indeed a child. On a related point, the hill is a bunny hill, appropriately challenging for a child.

(And yes, I gave this post a rabbit-related name, just in case Lauren or Bequita17 still read my blog and remember the first-of-the-month game. But I think I thumped them at it so many times that they stopped playing the game, and it’s no longer any fun, because I’m playing by myself. Happy March!)

The ski lift, you will notice, uses an apparatus that you sort of sit on, while also sort of skiing uphill. You’ll also note that to the right of the ascending child is a patch of mud.

You should try to keep the following data in an easily-accessible part of your cranium as I describe my inaugural skiing experience:

1. I have a low center of mass.
2. I speak none of the North African languages fluently enough to converse about ski lift procedures.
3. I am not a good skier (read: bunny hills are too hard and endanger small children downhill from me).
4. I don’t think ski lift operators much care for me.

I made two trips up the slopes, although my doing this required four rides on lifts. My first ride carried me up the adult bunny hill slope (on the right-hand side of the above photograph), passed relatively uneventfully and would later prove to have been too easy, as my confidence was needlessly raised to levels unfounded by my prior skiing experience.

Upon letting go and falling off the initial lift ride, I began to grasp that I would somehow have to return down the mountain. Fortunately, I had friends to coax me down the mountain, pick me back up when I was keeping the snow warm and help me traverse the mountain to the next lift. The descent across the mountain to the next lift (see pathway pictured below) should have alerted me to my inability to remain upright on skis. Nevertheless, I convinced myself to ascend the mountain further and plopped myself down on the second lift.

By plopped myself down on the second lift, I mean I landed on the ground. Although I was almost the only person in line, I apparently failed to give the lift operator the magic signal to release the pulley that would have supported my weight. The foreshadowing of my downward trajectory and imminent collision-course with the ground was lost on him – that, or see number four above. Fortunately, with few folks waiting behind me, I quickly received an opportunity to try again.

My second ride took me two poles further up the slope before I voluntarily bailed out, letting go of the rope and landing in the snow. After crawling out of the way of the one or two people behind me on the lift, I decided to release my skis and walk down the slope to a less intimidating elevation, where I could attempt to practice basic ski maneuvers.

Why, you might ask, did I not practice some basic ski maneuvers prior to my first trip down the slopes? There is a good reason for this. Prior to the aforementioned journey up and down the slope, I had attempted to walk a short distance up the mountain and practice basic ski maneuvers. My practice ended when I discovered that one of my skis was defective and continually caused its respective ski boot to detach from the ski. The boot simply would not remain on the ski, because the boot-holding apparatus exceeded the length of the boot. Attempts to tighten the boot-holding apparatus were to no avail. When I returned from the rental shop with useable skis, I forewent further practice and headed immediately up the mountain.

After the defective ski incident and my initial run, I needed an hour or two to muster enough courage to attempt a run on the easiest bunny hill.

Fortunately, I had my good friend, Rainbow Sock Man (not pictured here in RSM form), along with me.

He, too, had encountered falling-off-ski-lift issues earlier in the day. He had also experienced defective sled issues. That’s another story.

We decided to conquer the bunny hill together. He saved a place in line for me, allowing me to enter the lift line in front of him. My third lift ride began with great promise. I sat down on the lift, found myself moving in a forward direction and looked forward to waiting for my friend at the top of the hill. Then, for reasons I still cannot explain, my seat lowered itself to the ground, while I was still moving forward, and I got dragged through the patch of mud to the right of the child pictured above.

I walked back over to the ski lift operator and tried to get back on the lift, but he basically ignored me until my friend’s daughter came through the line and graciously allowed me to get in front of her, setting up my fourth lift ride of the day. This time I rode the lift to approximately two poles from the top before involuntarily letting go of the rope and – again – scrambling to crawl out of the way of people on the lift behind me.

On my second trip down the mountain, I melted less snow than on my first trip. Also, I was thankful for people like Vinko Bogataj, who help me to remember that things could always be worse.

If you ever want to see skis on a donkey, come to North Africa.