Cyprus - Tuesday 20th May 2008

Well today was great. I got up just before noon, so I obviously needed the sleep.
Upon waking, something felt very odd indeed. It felt as though I had been run over by a train. My shoulders and chest ached and I felt really hot. It was when I looked in the mirror that I saw the whole of my situation. My knees and shoulders were bright red with sunburn and I have a number of mosquito bites on my back and shoulders. I headed straight into the bathroom and applied copious amounts of after-sun lotion. (I also had a spot of sunburn, in weird patterns on my arms. However, as I’m not a giant pussy, I didn’t bitch about it. I just got on with it, layered on the sun cream, and went about my day.)
Sean and Laura were already up and had been to the shop. (No, I had been to the shop. Laura had sat around, and had even offered to drive me the five minute walk, lazy as she is, and assumes everyone else to be. I opted for the more refreshing stroll. It was lovely. I bought eggs, bread and presents for people. I have all kinds of presents for people, and no presents at all for myself. That is lame.)
I decided to have a day in and away from the sun. Photos and Command and Conquer, ace!

Sean, over to you!

(While Andy girled out at the villa, we headed off on adventures. First up, we went to the Prehistoric Village, just past Stavros’ restaurant. Now, on the interest scale, this didn’t rank highly. It was basically just a reconstruction of a settlement they had found there that date back to circa 3,500BC, with, unfortunately, very little information to tell you what was going on. There was a board detailing some of the finds that had been made there, most of which were highly important, and had, therefore, been moved to the Museum of Cyprus in Nicosia. These included statues such as the Lempa Lady, a representation of a fertility Goddess, which is thought to have been a possible inspiration for the Goddess Aphrodite, so that was interesting. Unfortunately, some of the others found it, shall we say, dull, and we shifted out pretty sharpish.

The next stop on our Andy-less odyssey was Pafos Bird and Animal Park. Now, this was by far the most expensive thing we have done so far on the holiday, at a whopping €15.50 each, and we were sorely tempted to turn around and walk away. However, we decided to go ahead (mainly because Anna had already asked for six tickets), and entered the park.

My first impression was that it was bigger than I had expected. It seemed strange that something that size could be so well hidden away, but so it was. We followed the directions given by the surly ticket collector, and headed down our first path. It led, as most paths did, to some bird cages. There were a hell of a lot of birds in the place, and most of them were pretty much of a muchness, but the first section did contain some cool ones – buzzards and eagles (and bears, oh my!) Anna found a massive feather which one of the birds had dropped, which she stole. The buzzards were flying around like mentals, but they had fairly big enclosures, so that was ok.

While we moved on to the petting zoo section (rabbits and goats, essentially), Goldy went to the kiosk for a cool, refreshing drink. I think he was unaware at the time that right next to the kiosk was a cage containing a 4 metre long albino python. When he did find out, however, we rushed over to look. The young lady manning the kiosk was more than happy to get it out for us to touch, which was cool. Snakes aren’t at all slimy, and the feel of the muscles underneath the scaly skin was awesome. After playing with it for a while, Rich, Donna, Anna and I had our picture taken with it (Goldy and Laura kept well away), before it was put back in its cage. Goldy was mighty brave to stand so close to the thing, and didn’t really freak out at all (except when we asked how fast it could move, and after being told, ‘Quite fast,’ it was put on the floor about ten feet from him. He scarpered a bit then.

We carried on meandering around the park, taking in horses, deer, gazelle, and all manner of exotic birds. Laura kept trying to get a peacock to open up to her, but as she didn’t seem to turn the birds on, it didn’t really happen. We also saw a mouflon, which is a type of sheep indigenous to Cyprus, and found nowhere else on earth. They’re extremely rare, with only around 2000 in the world, so I wasn’t allowed to eat it, more’s the pity. By this time, it was almost the hour of the parrot show, so we headed in the direction of the show hall. Right next to it was the best animal of the day – a red squirrel. Absolutely brilliant. It seemed strange to us, but then I do suppose that we keep lots of little lizards in British zoos, which are abundant here. Anyway, he didn’t look to have any fun things in his little cage, so Anna and I gave him a bit of grass to play with. He had an absolute ball with that thing.

We got into the parrot theatre and waited for the show to start, as 5 parrots were placed on perches at the back of the room. The show began with the raising of the flag (by a parrot), and comprised of all manner of exciting and funny tricks, including roller skating parrots, bike riding parrots, car driving parrots, parrots in pushchairs, parrots that could count, parrots that saved their money in a piggy bank, and, as they say, much, much more. The snake lady (for she was also running the show) asked if anyone wanted to have one of the birds fly to them, and, being the noble gentleman that I am, I let Laura do it instead of me. I would have liked to have touched a parrot.

Anyway, after the parrots, some owls were brought in. They didn’t do any tricks though, beyond flying backwards and forwards (and eating dead baby chicken heads and feet), although one of them did twist its head right round, which was cool. Anna and I had our photo taken with one, and stroked it. It was very soft, and tried to fly into Laura’s face.

After the parrot show, we wandered back into the park, seeing yet more wondrous animals – zebras, giraffes, giant tortoises, camels and emus amongst them. The ostrich pen had two newly laid eggs within it, and the ostriches were making a good job of keeping us away from them (wire notwithstanding) with an aggressive display on the edge of their territory. Ostrich eggs are massive. Then again, so are ostriches. I always forget just how big they are – essentially, 6 foot plus chickens, with bad tempers. After Rich had decided to taunt them some more, we moved onto the reptile house, wherein Goldy displayed yet more courage by, firstly, actually entering, and secondly, looking at snakes and not running away. They had some nasty little buggers in there too, horned vipers and the like, although there was a snake that is immune to rattlesnake venom, and sometimes eats them, so Goldy was happy to know that at least one of the species is on his side. They also had one of the ones that lives in the garden of the villa, so now I have definitely seen one.

The sun, incidentally, was almost unbearable at times, so by around half four, we decided that we’d had enough and headed back to our invalided travel-mate. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging, although I didn’t dare go in the sun anymore, fearing that, as the spell which had prevented me burning at all had now been broken, I might just end up doing two weeks’ worth in one day. Instead, I packed in preparation for tomorrow’s departure, and relaxed around the villa.)

Later on. Donna has departed to the airport with Rich and we went down to the Kings Road Bar for ANOTHER evening of Karaoke. We sang some songs, I failed a Knocking on Heavens Door (but did a great Axel) and Goldy had no balls when I came to asking out a chick.

(Dude, as the holiday has gone on, you’ve gotten totally lame at filling in details. After Donna’s departure, we carried on with our ‘doing nothing’ for a little while before heading down to the pub. Thankfully, there was a much larger crowd in tonight, so we had a little respite between songs, although it was a little annoying that all of us got called up while eating our dinner! Andy didn’t suck at Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, in fact, but he was annoyed that he only fitted in one bit of Axel business. I underestimated how high November Rain is, though, and felt like a noob. I made it up by totally owning Ace of Spades, which was cool.

The final act of the night, however, was surely the gayest moment of the entire holiday, as Goldy put us all down to sing Perfect Day. It was dreadful. And, even worse, prevented me getting a chance to do a bit of Goldie Looking Chain. I think the aged audience would have gone for it in a big way, as well.

Anna, Andy and I headed back first (as has become usual), at about 1:30, with the others about half an hour behind. Goldy went to bed first, and the other five of us sat around talking outside. Despite the fact that we had an early start on Wednesday morning, no-one seemed inclined to go to bed until they absolutely could stay up no longer, and the final night of our holiday dwindled out in a whirl of circular arguments between the drunkards (AKA Rich and Laura), and a general rundown of the time we’d spent together. Andy, Anna and I sloped off at around 3:30, leaving the other two chewing the fat, hoping to God that they wouldn’t leave the table outside in the same state as they had last time! Laura eventually came to bed about 5, and was very cute, but, to be fair, at that time, I didn’t really have the energy to say anything above a mumble. We slept for a little while in preparation for our final day…)

So, Tuesday for me, DONE!