Suffering the effects of a crazy night in a Hawaiian-themed Riga bar, the Boyfriend and I trundled blearily out of town in a sticky, rusted train, wondering what we’d let ourselves in for.

We’d been in Latvia for four days, pondering the hostel’s various tour options: shoot live rounds from Kalashnikovs in a disused bunker (too far), Russian spa massage and waxing (too painful), pub crawl (as if any hostel guest was doing otherwise!). We settled on the Sigulda Olympic bobsled run as a pleasant diversion for our last day in the country and, being broke, decided to do it the independent way.

We rolled into a ramshackle town, and asked three people before we were convinced it was really our stop. Any thoughts of staying the night went quickly out of the window, and we headed directly for the sled run. Sigulda in November is not a place to hang around.

The closer we got to the sled run, the more harmless it looked. Ha! Was that it? Children as young as eight or nine were launching themselves down on ‘skeleton’ sleds like it was a playground slide.

As we reached the run and looked over, however, vertigo swept over us both. This thing was MASSIVE! It plunged down a hill and snaked on and on and into the forest, where they can’t hear you scream. This wasn’t how I’d pictured it at all. I’d pictured it being fun.

Now shivering from more than just the weather, we kitted up and climbed in unsteadily behind a gruff Latvian bobsledder, hoping that he’d got the improvised sign language for ‘go easy, we’re terrified’. One good shove and we lurched forward onto the ice.

Braced and tense in the sled, it was a bone-jarring, breathless and exhilarating minute of over 100km/h, blowing any rollercoaster experience out of the water. The last corner, ‘the wall’, provided some serious G’s as a finale!

You know, I take it all back. Sigulda is about the most exciting place in Latvia!