Cyprus Part 2 Summer 2015

Following another of the Blue Birds fabulous breakfasts we loaded our things back into the car and set off to find the Donkey Gate-man. We fed him a bread roll this time as all the fruit had now been eaten and continued on our way.

There is only one road to the point so the first hour of our drive was over familiar roads. Where the road eventually branched we took the road along the North coast admiring the scenery as we went.

It could have been the heat, it could have been the food overload we had eaten for breakfast, but the mountains definitely started to take on human forms as we gazed upon them.

Reclined faces seemed to look out to sea.

This one even had nostrils and a mouth as we passed on the far side!

In the distance entire bodies reclined upon the parched land, some just with suggested features,

others with entire form plain to see!

We reached 'The End' relatively easily

and, true to Peter's word, we drove the entire way. It was near to mid day and even with the light cloud cover it was still incredibly hot.

There is not a great deal to Cyprus's top point.

A lone lighthouse stands on the barren landscape looking out on a rather non dramatic sea. After the clear crystal waters and the death defying drop of the Northern Tip this was rather an anti climax!

I climbed the lighthouse (because I could)

and took some photographs trying to get both coasts into the same photo.

The 'panorama' setting worked better although it did distort the land a bit!

Peter took some photos of me climbing the lighthouse.

I took some photos of him on the ground.

In fact the lighthouse is probably the most interesting thing there!

There were some amazing flowers growing between the boulders that led down to the lapping sea.

Their delicate white fronds in stark contract to the barren rocks surrounding them.

We sat for a while ….

… then got back into the car and drove off, our idea of spending the night at North Cyprus's second point in ruins!!

We dined in a tiny restaurant at a busy crossroads near to the border. 

The main reason we stopped there was because we had already passed it twice thanks to my amazing navigation skills and thought we would actually stop this time and ask someone where we were and where the border crossing was!

The food was great and incredibly cheap. I can't tell you what we ate but it was some sort of rolled pastry stuffed with olives and cheese. I also forgot to take a photo!

It poured down with rain while we were there and a cool freshness replaced the stiffling heat of the day. With our waitress circling various points on our map we headed off.

To be totally fair to my navigation skills the map we had was from Southern Cyprus, with Southern Cyprus names for the towns and districts. In Northern Cyprus these name mean nothing as they have their own names for the towns that bore no correlation to the ones on my map!

We crossed the border mid afternoon with plenty of time to explore the Troodos mountains! We drove high into the hills, the air cooling dramatically as we went.

We saw trees and more trees and drops into valleys far below. 

The 30km warnings on the corners must have been for people with suicidal leanings as we took each corner at 10km and even then felt we were living dangerously!

I looked at my map, 

I looked at the road. 

I knew exactly where we were on the map ….... 

unfortunately the car wasn't where I said it was!

We turned this way and that, we passed signs that said Phani 10km this way only to pass another sign at the next crossroads that said it was 10km in the other direction? 

I did find a helport though that wasn't on the map!!

The light was beginning to fade and I had no idea where we were. I did suggest we spend the night in one of the mountain huts …..

.... but Peter was having none of it

So I returned to the car, re read the map, this time with Peters blue dot on his phone to help me and through the dark we drove on!

We arrived in a coast village at about 8.30pm to find everything shut. 

We drove onto the next village only to find everything in darkness there too. On the way to the third village we spotted a tiny bar with a few lights on and stopped.

Did the lady have any rooms? We enquired. 

No. 

Oh! 

Did the lady know of any rooms we could stay in? 

She disappeared into the back having poured us a refreshing beer. 

Ten minutes and about four phone calls later she informed us happily she had found us some rooms!

We relaxed, finished our beers and then followed her in her car, while she left the only other customer in charge of her bar, back to the first village we had passed through. Down a dust track we went to the beach where a large restaurant sat on the water front. 

We all got out as she introduced us to her friend. 

“She has a room,” our rescuer informed us, “You just wait with her.” 

We thanked her profusely and waited patiently while her friend searched for various keys.

“You follow him” she eventually smiled at us, passing the set of keys to a man at a desk who dutifully got up and headed for the door. 

Back in our car we followed the guy to the second village we had driven through. This was turning into an adventure in its own right! 

Down a turning, past a run down house, along a little side road to the left and we were there!

The apartment was great!

Sea views of a sort (it was dark and there was another house between us and the sea) hot water and a huge double bed!

We showered and made a plan. As we hadn't actually seen a lot of our route through the mountains although the bits we had driven we had seen well having driven them at least twice!

We decided we would cut back into them in the morning and drive the bit we hadn't seen again!! Well it made sense to us at the time!

Out to sea a huge storm lit up the sky with electric charges, we sat on the balcony just watching it and enjoying the cool air.

At 3am Peter woke me to show me the storm again! It was now over head and the noise was deafening! He promptly went back to sleep half an hour later while I listened to the rain …. and listened to the rain …... and listened to the rain!

Early the next morning another storm could be seen on the horizon. We stayed where we were until it had emptied its water content onto the land and then as quickly as it arrived, it went.

Blue sky reappeared and the ground began to steam.

We found an amazing pastry shop and stocked up on all sorts of pastries stuffed with spinach, cheeses, fruity things and what nots. We packed drinks and crisps and ate chocolate ice cream for breakfast.

On the map it showed a road back to where I thought the forest hut has been. 2Km down said road it turned into a forestry road! In a 4x4 we might have stood a chance but in our little hire car? …. we turned around and headed to Polis.

At Polis we turned into the mountains and had a great time!

We saw trees!

And drops into valleys far below.

We saw landslides and random rocks that spilled out over the roads!

The storms had obviously emptied their entire deluge into the mountains washing boulders and debris onto the roads as it passed. We were so glad we had actually managed to find our way out of the hills the night before!

As Peter swerved this way and that around the stones (a puncture up here was the last thing we needed) I tried to make a video!

As we saw in full daylight the hazards of the road we once again were extremely grateful all this had happened once we had left the mountains and we were safe in a cosy apartment.

In full sunlight we drove back down to the coast, we drove through our three villages with all their wonderful flowers and sleepy atmosphere. We drove past our pastry shop and back to the cross roads near Polis. This time we turned right and headed for our third point!

We stopped of at a dive shop and picked up a new dive log for Peter, We asked about the diving but when we saw the prices we became even more grateful to Kris and all the Dive crew at the Aldiana!

Despite our best intentions there just isn't a road to the Western most tip of Cyprus. We went as far as we could and then looking at the map decided to head cross country to the other side of the point and then head down the coast.

It looked straight forward on the map …. sort of!

We began to climb up into the hills again constantly having to stop as the view of the coast behind us just got better and better.

Higher and higher we climbed through villages that looked deserted.

Higher and higher we climbed until we found a sign post, we looked at the map ….. we were reassured we were still going in the right direction …... looking good so far.

We turned towards Fasli and continued on our way. The last view of the coast was breathtaking! The photos just don't do it justice.

And then we were on our way across the point!

The tarmac road turned into a concrete road but we didn't worry. The concrete road dipped and curved and turned into a dirt road but still we didn't worry as until now there had been NO other turn offs so we MUST be on the right road! Mustn't we?

The road now began to we descend but it also began to fork, which way to go?

It suddenly dawned on us that we hadn't found Fasli yet but we could see the sea on the other side!

Happy that we were still heading in the right direction we carried on along our narrow dirt track.

We found fresh tire tracks ( always a good sign) and decided to follow them. We passed the goat huts (so did the tractor tracks) but when we reached the next fork the tractor tracks lead back towards the mountains. We wanted to go to the coast so abandoning our trail we turned right where he had turned left.

It say it was an interesting ride is an understatement. The trail got progressively narrow and at times it seemed to disappear over a ridge only to reappear at the last moment. But we were still not worried, we were still having fun …. in fact we were quite surprised when the road stopped!!

It didn't just disappear, or turn into a field , it just stopped on the top of a ridge with steep sides that led down to a gorge on three sides!!!

We turned around carefully and went back to find the tractor trail!!

We did make it to the sea, in fact about half a km from the coast we found the tarmac road again and zoomed the last 400m to the beach. At the beach the road turned back into a dust trail but now we knew where we were going. Beach buggies raced towards us, the occasional car could be seen in the distance, we were on our way to civilisation!

We stopped to admire some more caves and then drove into town to look for rooms. We stopped at a bar to ask about rooms and to have a drink. The whole area had the 'Kiss me quick' sea side feel and neither of us were keen to stay.

In Mazatos, the village next to the Aldiana was what everyone referred to as the Lego Hotel. Peter looked it up on the internet. 

For 70 euros we could stay in one of the apartments there. There was nothing we wanted to do here so he pressed book' and finishing our drinks we got back into the car and headed off. In three days we had been entirely round the Island ( some bits twice!)

Our Lego House apartment was amazing! There were only five rooms booked out in the whole place and two of those were to long term contractors who were out all day!

We had the place to ourselves!

I messaged Kris to say we would meet him in Legends in an hour but got a message back saying he was sick. Peter and I popped out for dinner and spent the next day just lazing by the pool.

We spent two night lazing around the Lego House before returning to the Aldiana for the rest of our stay.

This time we stayed in the main building 

with amazing views over the resort.

We partied with Sid and April

And got a few hangovers!

We went diving with Kris

And I learnt to kite surf!! (No Photos sorry!)

My claim to fame was that on the last day of my three day course with Sid I not only stood up but I also body dragged myself back to shore, pulling myself out of the water as I went.

I will confess I did not intentionally lift myself 12 foot out of the water but I did … and I crashed from that height …. and once I realised I was still alive and all bit moved was stoked!!!!!!

“Awesome!” was heard across the water as Sid rushed to make sure I was alive! “Lets do that again!!”

Peter and I flew out that night for Manchester where we were booked into a hotel for the night. At 3am I woke him saying I needed to go for a pee.

Confused he told me to just go for a pee to which I replied “I would if I could move!”

My whole body had frozen solid. I felt like I had broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder! Peter helped me to the bathroom. I was so glad we were back in the UK with a plentiful supply of pain killers.

Our holiday had been amazing and Peter and were closer than we had been in a long time!

I now had only 10 weeks until I left him to go off to Singapore for the winter!!