Cyprus - Monday 10th May 2010

Today was Goldy’s last full day with us so in true Sweeney style we decided to go for a massivly long drive. I mean, what holiday is complete without spending over 12 hours in a car travelling along winding, narrow roads at break neck speeds!

We filled up the two cars at Polis and headed out along the roads out towards Steni, and then through to Stavros. We went to Cedar Valley, Kikos Monastery and then along some more winding roads to Trudos then down the valley to Platres and followed the road down to Paphos.

It was a bit of a mission to be fair. En route to Stavros we found a couple of geocaches. The first was at a small hut on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere looking out over the valley and hills. The hut was long abandoned and had no roof at all and was only one room but the location was very cool indeed. The heat was rising by this point of our journey. We had risen above the haze and away from the cool winds of the coast. We could tell it was going to be a pretty hot one.

The notes for this cache said “make sure you look for the easy track up”. Turns out we didn’t look hard enough, as the easy-ish but slightly scrably and overgrown route we found was trumped by the gentle, wide-open slope round the corner.

The ruined huts weren’t of much interest in themselves, but the view and location were indeed very nice and the area (being isolated) was obviously used now and again as shelters by people out hunting. Judging by the location and the amount of shotgun shells though, the main prey was roadsigns and empty beer bottles.

We followed the road a little more and retrieved another geocache at the roadside and then continued onwards.

Anna was starting to feel a little bit poorly sick by this point. There was no horizon to look at and the bends were sending me into a bit of a trance. The next welcome stop was a cache at the Agrino helipad. Its odd really that they have very few, completely randomly placed helipads. This one was not really close to a town and once again had terrific views over the tree covered mountains.

I nearly hit a car near here coming the opposite way, as it was on a bend and in the MASSIVE blind spot at the corner of the windscreen that our car had as a result of its overly vast wing mirrors and two inch thick pillars. Sorry, random man – but at least if we had hit you and you’d been hurt, you would have been near an evacuation point for an air ambulance.

The next stop on the journey was probably one of my favourites. Anna missed it because she needed a small sleep in the air conditioned car to try and shake the motion sickness.

This stop was at a Mouflon Enclosure. Mouflons are a endangered sheep/goat that are indigenous to Cyprus. We had a short walk up some stairs and looking through a fence into the enclosure, in a little dell were some Mouflon. They are strange looking short haired sheep with horns. There were some baby ones as well. Very cute indeed, Anna was very jealous.

The mouflons were excellent, and obviously quite happy in their little safety zone. They’ve also sussed out that if they hang out near the back of it, people have to climb the stairs to see them and more often than not won’t because it’s so bloody hot, so they get left in peace. And people say sheep are stupid!

Moving on swiftly we went through Cedar Valley to the Kikos Monastery. It was described by “The Man (Paul from James Villas) as being a sight to behold with loads of gold on all the walls and large frescos.

Upon arrival we parked just round the corner from the coach tours and approached the front door. I put the leg sections of my trousers on and Anna put on a skit that she had brought with her to preserve our decency inside and to avoid being Smited (smote/smitten?) by the lord himself inside.

The Lord was obviously having a day off though, given one lady emerged wearing what appeared to be just a large hanky and a ludicrously floppy hat.

Entering and looking around it was clear that money was not an issue at all for the Greek Orthodox Church. There were new mosaics all over the building and the structure was spotless in spite of the hundreds of tourists a day that go through the doors.

I particularly liked the way the frescos and  mosaics had, in some places, been painted directly over light switches. Bit of a clue that it probably wasn’t that ancient…

We decided to go to the museum section of the monastery for which we had to pay €5 for the pleasure. My word, I have never seen so much gold in my lift. There must have been 20 to 30 different copies of the scriptures all in golden covers, icons, chalices, clothes and paintings. The collection must have been priceless. Wandering round on the polished marble floors in the near darkness looking at the spot-lit exhibits only made me regret giving them any money to enter.

While the monastery did have some interesting stuff, it was overpriced for entry and does always make me quite angry that places like this, dripping in gold, fine cloth and beautiful artworks exist (and indeed have existed in much the same way for hundreds of years) while the people who funded it all lived (and in some case still live) in abject poverty. Something isn’t right in any religion that thinks the most important thing is to have a golden church and vicars who wear crowns rather than churchgoers who have enough to eat and somewhere to live. Rant over, I should also point out that the array of dreadful shops outside to fleece tourists was a tat lover’s paradise. There was a staggering array of crap available, from manky-looking nuts to toy machine guns for the kids (a personal favourite of Jesus, I’m sure), all at healthily inflated prices for the tourist wallet.

Maxibon count: 2.

We continued to look around and I spotted a mosaic that was clearly a typo.

We left the monastery for drinks and a maxi-bon (official holiday ice cream) and then continued to Trudos. On the way I spotted a sign that said “Services” with a cup of tea and a knife and fork pointing up a sharp hill to an interesting looking building with a HUGE cross beside it. We took a very short detour to have a look and once again were greeted with a lovely view and a small white chapel. Unfortunately the food and drink was unavailable but a nice place all the same.

The car park of the church with the outrageously out of scale cross also featured a “wishing tree”, where people tie bits of cloth with (I assume) prayers attached. On a purely technical basis, if God is omnipresent, does he really need the tree and the bits of cloth? He’s getting lazy if you ask me. Either that or he should at least invest in an 0800 service, as a fabric and horticulture based system seems somewhat haphazard.

Trudos is really not worth the effort to be honest. If you go there, have a small drive about and move on to the town of Platres. There is a trout farm there and a lovely waterfall detailed in our last Cyprus blog.

We did stop for a spot of grub at Trudos. It was overly priced, pretty poor quality and the place we went to was next door to the “Ben Nevis Café”. There were local stalls selling generic tourist crap and nothing much else. I’m sure that it would be a lot better in the winter when the snow is around and about but in the ‘off season’ (most of the year) there is nothing going on.

This place was indeed dead as a doornail – even the cats looked bored. In fact, it was so dead they could probably have used the waiter’s outrageously pink t-shirt as a tourist attraction.

While at lunch, and old couple sat down near to us and demanded “Tea” and asked the question “Is this it?” I think “Yes” is the answer. Oh well, food consumed and out on the road again for the best drive IN THE WORLD! If only we could have shared the experience with an Atoz driving mental by the name of RICHARD BENNETT, he would have enjoyed it so!

This was certainly one occasion where I missed my Smart Roadster. Which to add insult to injury was in fact somewhere on Cyprus, seeing as I’d sold it 5 years ago to a Cypriot guy (as they drive on the left too, like all sensible countries).

The drive to the coast took us down onto the valley floor and along graceful bends and long straights with the sun setting around us the heat was incredible but it was good to feel warm. I think I may have over tanned my right arm, I don’t think they match anymore!

Once we hit the coast we drove along to Paphos to have a quick look round the harbour area and “bar street”. Nothing had changed, the restaurant owners were still letchy and slimey and bar street is still a complete hole.

The waterfront and the castle were very pretty in the sunset, once you’d run the gauntlet of people offering you “free wine” and a “nice table, my friend” (as opposed to what – overpriced wine and the worst table we can find because I’ve decided I hate you?).

Prior to this we’d also had an accidental wander round an archaeological site in Paphos outside a church. I say accidental because there were “keep off the ruins” signs everywhere – apart from the entrance where we’d come in. Cue some dirty looks from the German tourists who’d arrived from the “right” direction. There was also, oddly, a King of Denmark in the graveyard (as in a dead one buried there, not the current one out sightseeing). Apparently he’d “dropped dead suddenly” while on a pilgrimage. Which I think is the polite way of saying he caught something tropical and unpleasant.

The sun was really setting now and the shadows were growing longer so, as it was Goldy’s last day we went for a swift one at the Kings Road Bar. It was closer to Paphos than I remembered and in the early evening it was populated with slightly red English types and had E4 Music playing in the background. It felt a little bit homely but dirty at the same time. We didn’t stay too long. Gaz was getting an urge to order “egg and chips”.

The King’s Road was basically a hot version of Blackpool – ropey bars and clubs aplenty. “Lovely” mural in the King’s Road bar gents loo as well, assuming you like poorly rendered yet absurdly buxom ladies. They made Lara Croft look flat chested.

Our last stop of the day was at Latchi near to home. We drove over the hills in the darkness and stopped finally at Porto Latchi. Janey, Gaz and I shared a Sea Bass (his name was Stephen) and (not being a fish person at all) I thought it was actually very nice! Janey managed to have two orange juices delivered to her with some small insects doing the backstroke in them and Anna (who had ordered the Mousaka) found that it had been made with Qworn – not happy. Still it all tasted good and eventually Jane managed to get an orange without any extras. The bill was reasonable so at the end of the evening we paid up and left to get back home and to bed.

The fish was very nice indeed. The orange we got as a free dessert was also very nice, but I don’t get on well with fruit in kit form and this one was no exception. Basically, I couldn’t have made myself much stickier if I’d just punched the orange for about half an hour. I even had to wash under my watch strap as I’d got juice up my arms past my wrists.