Cyprus - Saturday 8th May 2010

I’ll start today off, and the main excitement is that today is the day that RICHARD BENNETT will be arriving, so Gaz took the opportunity to poop in his toilet before he gets here. We may yet all follow his example. You never told me this !! boo to you

To be fair, I left it as I found it. Which in this case was with a dead mosquito in the toilet. Though I should add the mosquito simply didn’t flush – I didn’t remove it then gently replace it, like some sort of sacrifice to the temperamental lavatorial gods of Greek plumbing.

It started off quite hazy and overcast this morning but it’s now nearly 10am and it’s starting to clear up, so I’m glad I’ve stayed home as I’m feeling a bit dizzy and weird – I think I had a bit too much sun yesterday and it’s left me a bit woozy – the plan for the others is a geocache trek into the Akamas peninsula to bag the half dozen or so that follow the coastal path beyond the Baths of Aphrodite, but I’ll let them fill you in when they get back.

Thanks Anna. Yes, as Anna said, we went for a trek up the coast of the Akamas peninsula. We drove over to and through Lachi and parked at the watery hole known as the Baths of Aphrodite. As described last time - it is a mossy ridden pit containing an eel and this time had the added bonus of a dead pigeon and some empty condom wrappers, lush! Mint flavoured if I’m not mistaken.

I didn’t know dead pigeons came in flavours?

The first cache took us through the Baths (well the trail, not the water) and up the other side through various types of foliage all labelled. We kept rising along what I can only assume was an ancient trading path over the hills to near the top. We were very glad that the sun was not fully out and it was a bit hazy otherwise we would have all died of heat exhaustion right there. This one was quite cool actually, we had come through the baths and got to the point on the other side and the tool was telling us it was behind us but to the right which yes took us up a hill, it was quite a hike up but it was so cool to see the view when we got there, I’ll drop a picture in this later, worked out where it should be and I saw a glimpse of orange in this bush, looked in and saw the cache, bish bash cache.

Given everyone else has covered what and where, I’ll cover what it was like – lots of hot and a great deal of up.

The cache was bagged and signed up by us all and we then went down the way we came along the E4 footpath following the coastline northward.

The footpath was an unmade road with a loose surface. I thought that the Pimp-Mobile would have been fine along it but we soon got to some incredibly steep inclines, I then re assessed, no matter how cool our car was, I just didn’t want to risk it.

The pimpmobile might have made it, but I doubt the Note would have. Not that it’s a bad car per se, it’s just designed for school runs rather than stunt runs and despite looking quite tall doesn’t actually have much ground clearance. Also, as it had a manual gearbox I think it would have protested quite a lot being revved like mad in first gear for about an hour.

Along the path we snagged a further two caches. One was missing and needed maintenance and the other was very well hidden in an interesting rock formation. Boo Hiss to the missing one but we got to the rock face one and that was a heck of a cache to get to….

The rock face one was very cool as it was literally a ‘rock face’ – it had weathered into essentially a natural Easter Island head.

The day was getting on and the temperature was rising so we decided to head back to the car. We were half way through the water supplies so it seemed sensible. Checked the one that was missing on the way back and found where it “should” have been but decided that it was gone and it needed reporting and carried on.

Let it go, dude. Let it go!

The trail back was more of the same, sweat, pain and a lot of dust. There were a large amount of German hikers going both ways and most of them were elderly, it made me a little ashamed as I was almost ‘done’  from the experience whereas they looked pretty chipper! I think I need to work on my endurance walking and fitness when I get back to the UK. Trail back was bloody hard!! Seriously I’m just not fit, I admit this openly and boy this pushed me and my limits. We got there in the end, I was having major flashbacks of my cadet days starting to resent doing this in the first place but wanted to prove to myself I could do it because believe it or not I was enjoying doing it (yeah I know but I was !!)

Walk back was indeed quite hot, but the occasional sea breeze helped a lot and the views took your mind off feeling tired. Plus on getting back and passing the camp site there’s always the realisation that there’s someone better off than yourself – specifically anyone spending days on end in 30 degree heat under canvas who has to use a portaloo that’s previously been occupied by the aforementioned troop of German tourists. Not that I have anything against Germans, but they do like lots of beer and curries sausages. You can see where I’m going here. Or, rather, you don’t want to see where they’ve been going.

The view from the path of the coast was amazing. The rugged and rocky coastline spread out in front of us with a steep slope down to the sea below. We could see all the way along the bay and in the distance in a bank of haze we could see land where we guessed our house would have been.

There were a number of local lizards en route and surprisingly snails as well. We thought that they must have been pretty ‘hard as nails’ due to them being moist little buggers.

On arriving at the car we headed back to the house and met with Anna and saw how she was. Goldy headed out again to get some internet and to have another look for the Limni Jetty Cache from the other day. Having got the new co-ords for the Limni cache I thought I’d have a look, but alas it appears to also be gone unless I’m just being a numpty about magnetic caches…

I drove back to the Fly Away pub to get some internets and log our finds for the day, got there, logged on, had a refreshing glass of coke and a dirty chilli burger to satisfy my tummy J

Gaz and Janey went out for a small drive to get some bread and have a look at the village of Argaka. – they returned pretty quickly to be fair. The village was tiny and there was not a great deal there.

The bakery was a fabulous little place, with tons of really nice looking home-made stuff. I don’t have a massively sweet tooth so the baklava wasn’t up my alley what with it being made with all the sugar in the known universe (a slight exaggeration, but not far off), but the bread was lovely.

Upon everyone’s return, we received word from RICHARD BENNETT that he was unable to make it out from the UK due to work commitments. He has therefore been branded a loser and I took a ceremonial dump in the toilet that would have been en suite to his room. BENNETT you suck so hard…… got back went for disco nap woke up then had Andy asking me if I wanted a chicken burger that I’d bought on the BBQ went downstairs and was greeted with…..

BENNETT is the gay. Plus I wanted to have a go in the convertible he was allegedly hiring.

Team Fire (just Anna really) started the barbeque and I broke open the meat purchased the day before yesterday. It was a lot bigger than I thought.

We have over two kilos of beef rump steak cut into three strips about a foot long and four inches wide, eight pork cutlets and a load of other burgers, sausage and Stifados. This would have been about right if RICHARD BENNETT had been able to make it out, our mortal bellies however were not able to manage such a feast.

I put two of the beef steaks, five cutlets and two burgers on. Gaz and Janey were in charge of the salad.

When it was ready, it truly was a sight to behold.

The sun was setting, the food tasted great and we were in good company. AMEN to that, even if RICHARD BENNETT was absent…..

MEAT HAPPENED!!!

Tonight we are off to “Fly Again”, a local Irish Pub that “that man” told us not to go to. It is Karaoke night, I’m sure as it is off season we will be the only people there, which will be good.

The Fly Away (Fly Again - someone kept calling it the wrong name all week like a stupider) was as expected and quite a nice place, the owner I think was a German lady, the karaoke compare was called Daz (or Darren) his other half who’s name I forget started the singing, there was a table of three and two other people at the bar, all in all it was Anna, Andy and myself doing most of the singing, just the way we like it, well to a point, good night though, a few bears, an email from HackiB the Geocacher who has placed most of the areas Caches emailed me to say he deleted my comment about the lack of his cache at one of his locations due to a spoiler but he’s going to replace it. I messaged him back asking to confirm the Limni one was actually there because we’re convinced it’s not now….

Christ on all manner of bikes. The Fly Again is the sort of place I see in my nightmares of pikey holiday destinations populated with red-faced idiots in England tops and knotted hankies demanding egg and chips and “none of that foreign muck”. Actually that may have been a bit harsh as it wasn’t rough by any stretch (indeed it wasn’t much of anything, given it was mostly empty) and the staff were very nice, but it was undeniably somewhat naff – especially as the local idea of an Irish pub appears to be nailing any old crap to the ceiling and walls and not selling any local beer. The karaoke was actually fairly enjoyable (to watch – to participate in for me would have been about as much fun as bowel surgery performed by a drunk with a broken hedge trimmer), but you get the impression that everyone bar us, which was basically ex-pats, do that every week with the same songs and probably have done for years now, like some sort of 1970s pop-powered Groundhog Day. The bewildered reaction when Anna sung something by a relatively modern band was palpable. Thankfully, Goldy set things straight with a rousing rendition of the Chas & Dave “classic”, Rabbit. Also, all their arcade machines were switched off L

Bed time now, off to a dam tomorrow and more caches, oh and I’m 2179 miles from home, well the nearest cache near home, it’s gonna be fun looking them up when we get there.

Cyprus - Thursday 6th May 2010

Slept like an absolute log last night. Nothing woke me all night except for the ear splitting alarm I set for this morning. Waking up with no Suzie was WELL weird, didn’t like it at all, 5 more sleeps and counting, heard movement downstairs so got my shabby ass out of bed, quick shower and went down to investigate.

There is a need to get up this morning as “The Man” from James Villas is coming over to (in all certainty) sell us stuff like days out etc.

Jane is up and the Kettle is on, good times. I’m probably going to forego a shower this morning in favour of an outside shower and swim in a bit. I might have to wait for the sun to come over the house though and start warming the pool.

Good coffee Jane.

“The Man” also known as Paul came round and didn’t actually try to sell us anything surprisingly. He did mention that if we said “Paul sent us” in a couple of tavernas then there would be free wine. In reality we don’t feel confident in the coolness of Paul. It seems that he may have some outstanding bar bills so I think we might try and blag some wine anyway. Paul sported a nice line in nylon slacks. I suspect on hot days he’d generate enough static electricity to power his own villa. He probably treats himself to a nice pair every few months with the cash raised from backhanders from his recommended restaurants. Obviously the local Irish pub hasn’t got in on this scam as he was quite damning with faint praise about it being a place for stereotypical ex-pats. Quite ironic coming from a stereotypical ex-pat. Maybe they’d just laughed at his slacks once too often and he’d taken offence. Or he may have accidentally electrocuted the bartender’s dog.

Today we went out to the end of the road intending to go to Polis for the day. In stead of turning left to Polis, Goldy suggested we go right, so we did. We took a coastal road east and got as far as Pachyammas before we decided to stop and head back as there was nothing really going on at all. In hindsight, using the force on this occasion seemed rather crap as there was less than nothing that way, however…..

I checked my Geocaching App on my iBore and there were a few on the way back so we gave them a try. This did lead me to finding out about Geocaching which is a bit like pokemon with regards to finding something that someone else has put there, marking that we’ve found it and then going to the next one, and catching them all and it’s awesome.

The first was at Pomos marina. It is a lovely little cove, close to the town with a good size restaurant serving local fish and all the typical Greek dishes, more on that later. Disappointingly, Pomos looked like “Pornos” on the map, but wasn’t actually called that. I was expecting a town built on the sale and distribution of VHS copies of lewd films like the ones Five used to show when it was still called Channel 5 and had no money. It was, though, a really nice little place.

We had a gander at the marina, lots of little fishing boats with nets and ropes and stuff, there was a big dead fish floating in the water and a shouty kitty living in the rocks which shouted at us, then on to find the cache. We had a short walk along the beach, then up a rockface and doubled back on ourselves. Typically, it was under a stone near to the cliff. The cache itself was a bit worrying. It was cylindrical about eight inches long and about and inch in diameter, who knows where it had been *shudders*.

Opened, signed and replaced with no muggle interference. Which whilst in the right area (read on the cliff not down by the sea) I had in fact walked right past it, but not knowing what to look for it was a bit meh but good that we got it, my first Geocache, Suzie’s gonna love this as it means we can go walking lots J

The restaurant was our next stop. We had a simple meal of Halloumi (squeaky) cheese in pitas, a spot of Tzatziki and a round or two of water to replenish the reserves. Didn’t come to a great deal of cash so we paid and left quickly, just in case it was an error. Please note, I’d just had a can of pepsi, the rest are the dishonest scumbags :op though I’ve no idea how they came to that price on the bill

I dropped a 2 euro coin over the balcony, which Simon kindly retrieved for me, finding a small dice along the way. Prizes! Also, at this point some very religious looking people arrived at the restaurant. And by that I mean they were wearing Orthodox garb, not that they were crucified or doing miracles or anything. There were some splendid beards on display, which seem to be compulsory for being a Greek-style vicar. In fact, their entire theology may be based around amount and length of facial hair rather than piousness. Not necessarily a good system as that’d make Hitler a higher rank than, say, a clean-shaven deity type such as Buddha. Still, you’ve got to start somewhere I suppose and at least Hitler would be a lot lower down the pecking order than Santa. But then again ZZ Top would be equivalent to a whole squad of Jesuses (Jesii?).

We got back into the car and drove west, to the abandoned Paradise Taverna for the next cache, struck out on this one. It wasn’t so bad, it was nice and hot, the cache didn’t seem to exist though. I even looked in an abandoned commercial dishwasher and under some pallets that I think something was living under. Bit scary.

I got a seed stuck to my shoe here that looked like a tiny conker. Excellent.

The next cache was towards Polis and it was at a beach (if you could call it that). Limni Jetty is in the middle of nowhere and used to be used as a local copper mine which was closed in the 70’s. The buildings had fallen into disrepair and looked more home to tramps than anything at all useful. Loads of odd graffiti, like the now legendary “put your Nazis in the bin” slogan and advertising for the Low Bap society – perhaps a self help group for ladies with saggy boobs? I don’t know. Cache-fail, couldn’t find it anywhere. I don’t know where it was. Looking at the log on the iBore I think it may have been moved a number of times or even washed out to sea. Boo hiss…..

The graffiti also featured the tags of 91Boom, who seems to have written on literally most things on the island along with his chum 93Panic. Rather than being skilled street artists though, they just rudely scrawl their names on like obsessive flatmates labelling Tupperware containers in the fridge. Slackers – they could at least draw the occasional rude picture or write “If you read this you are gay”.

We continued on to Polis and parked up. We had a wander round in the now very arid early afternoon so we stopped off for a round of drinks and ice cream at a place called Savvas in the town square. If you need wi-fi, it is free here with the password DIMITRIS30. And good wifi it is too, emailed Suzie, she’s got a lovely dress for our trip to Spain woop woop

I had a pint of iced coffee, which was quite literally ice (cream) in a coffee. Not quite what I expected but surprisingly pleasant.

Polis has one geocache at a campsite. We had a wander round, Goldy found it and by this point he had the Geocaching bug. This was AWESOME !! with this little app I’d downloaded at the café I had the radar thingee and distance thingee, it was so cool we we’re trying to find it, found the rough area and we were trying to triangulate with Andy, Gaz and myself with our little apps on our phone, all 5 of us were searching and it all came back to the point where we’d almost started, so I climbed back up this little slope and had a look about and bingo a glimpse of white “container” was to be seen, of course I’m not going to tell you where it is exactly, that’s not the point of the game but I’d found my first one myself, most awesome. Inside were two travel bugs which Andy now has and a frog who wants to go island hopping… the UK is an island so I’ve grabbed that one and will be planting it in my first cache back home.

On the way to find it we saw a rat, he was actually quite cute.

On the way home we stopped off for supplies and then drove back to the villa for a coke float and a dip in the pool.

Oh, before I forget, I got hit with a water balloon as we drove along the main strip. Next time, I will stop and throttle the little bastard, BIG SENSE OF HUMOUR FAILURE!

In spite of this, we had a lovely, relaxing afternoon. Personally I thought the silver lining here was that all it was was a water balloon, it could have been a lot worse…

Well, we assume it was water anyway…

At the moment, I’m sitting on a sun bed, the sun is dropping in front of me and everything is well in the world.

Tonight, we have Liza’s for a mézé dinner.

2231hrs, just got in from Liza’s, crikey, €14 per head for more food than you could shake a stick at. It was a lovely meal but just tasted a bit ‘mute’. It was a perfectly good meal and very enjoyable but I don’t really know how to describe it. I’ll leave it to Gaz. Meal was nice, not to the level of Stavros’s (in Chlorakas from last year) maybe I can see if we can pop there on Sunday or Monday depending on the mood of the squad.

I’d describe the meal as “relentless”, given the conveyor belt of mostly meat that the waitress kept topping up. Most of it was quite nice, but all a wee bit bland – the sausage of death had us all stumped as to what was in it (red wine, it turned out – and most likely some less than prime cut meat if I’m honest), but prize for oddest dish was the one that looked like someone had dismantled an omelette and swept it into a small, greasy pile. Got some free wine without even having to drop Paul’s name. Unfortunately, soon realised why it was given away free.

Now coffee and I think soon to bed. Surgery (Trauma Centre on his DS) and Coffee and see what movies I have and speak to my Suzie and then to sleep to count one more off the 5 till I have her again, “have her”, yuk, bad turn of phrase,  wondering if we can sort out a Geocache now for next field trip J

Cyprus - Wednesday 5th May 2010

Today is the start of our holiday to Cyprus, at 0250hrs my alarm goes and I head to the bathroom in a daze.

The last few months have been pretty manic what with moving from our pokey little flat to a house just up the road. With work, DIY and other things on the horizon I didn’t feel very well prepared, but longing for, this holiday. It has been a cold and snowy winter and I think two weeks in the blazing heat is very much in order.

The was a slight panic yesterday when the Icelandic version of Mount Doom decided to spew another few hundred tons of ash into the air closing Scotland and Ireland’s air space.

After getting washed and changed, I pack up the last of the things while Anna dragged herself out of bed and gets ready.

It all seems like a bit of a dream and an eternity ago now, but we left, locked up tight and got in the car.

The trip to Gatwick was dark, and pretty quick. It was at least 15 minutes into the journey before we actually saw another car on the road.

We got to the car park and the bus took us to the North Terminal as soon as we were aboard.

Check in was pretty empty, security the same and everything was going without a hitch.

We found Goldy OHH Lies, I found you… (whose long suffering other half had given him a lift to the airport) and we went to grab a bite to eat at one of the many overly expensive ‘restaurants’ on the gallery. Well you did, I went and got my lovely “Eat” big breakfast bun that I’d been salivating over for a week.

We got called to our gate and a bus took us to a white, suspiciously unmarked small jet on the runway.

Once on board I was very surprised to see that it looked like an old GB Airways plane with blue leather seats and where we sat, on the bulkhead, I can safely say I had about 6ft of leg room. And 20ft for the mortals among us…..

We were delayed ½ an hour on the runway but we were soon in the air and jetting our way to Cyprus. Interesting note about the plane though, I think it needs a bit of a rest – as we took off, one of the oxygen mask panels a few rows from us came open, prompting a panicked shuffle around of the 3 people on that row to some other seats, all mid climb and a hasty announcement to the rest of us that everything was really ok. I’m quite glad we came prepared with our own food and drink as it turned out that the water on board for tea and coffee was heavily chlorinated and most people who bought one ended up getting a refund. I was either sleeping or really not paying attention at this point probably watching 24 or House J

The journey, of four hours, was spent swooning over the tiny babies on the plane, listening to sewer mouth gangster rap (and a bit of Glee) and eating our slightly overpriced Boots meal deal. Or as I said not paying attention to any of this, and eating my rather well priced boots meal deal and sipping my new tropical variety Berocca which in hindsight I should have put in two into a litre of water because it tasted and looked like weak piss, more on this later.

The four hours seemed a lot less when the tiredness crept in and sleep overcame us.

Also it’s worth pointing out that Simon is a naughty boy who didn’t keep hold of his drink bottle which, during landing and a bit of airbreaking about 5 mins out, flew straight off his armrest and under the seats in front of us and proceeded to dribble slowly out all over the floor, mmmm Berocca stains…

Well it’s better it did that than explode “piss” all over us J

We eventually landed at Paphos Airport and met with the first real frustration, getting our bags back. This was SO your fault, after jinxing us on the way going “it’s been a really smooth trip so far” yeah that was cosmic karma kicking us up the arse, so much so I swear my bag was put on the conveyor last….. For me, the frustration was slightly lessened by a large contingent of Canadian soldiers carrying their heavy metal flight cases through the arrivals hall with their big, tight t-shirt covered muscles, rippling alluringly in close proximity….oh I’m sorry, got a bit carried away there, carry on! It was a short wait but we soon got them and headed into arrivals to get our new ‘motor’.

In the lobby we met with a small Greek man who showed us to a lady who took us to a bronze Nissan Micra. Excellent I thought, we paid for this exact car. We had one in Crete a couple of years ago and it was perfect for us. Well, Goldy, Anna and I crammed our sorry assess into the car and the lady whisked us away from the airport along the access road. About half way along I could feel the mental local driver slowing and pulling over to the right. We shot onto a gravel path and sped along it for a couple of hundred meters towards a small hut. To be honest, a lot went through my mind in a short space of time. Where were we going, what would happen when we got there, do I need to ready myself for a back country shafting or would Goldy take one for the team first? Thank Christ Andy took the shot in the mouth, I certainly didn’t like the idea of it…..

We pulled up outside a small hut and the lady said in broken English “paperwork”. Right, we all got out and followed her to a cabin which from the outside was just a porta-cabin. Inside, thank God, were Budget signs, filing cabinets and other rental papers. PHEW! Goldy’s ass was saved, at least for the time being. Cheers dude, I owe you one J

We were sat with a middle aged cheeky Greek man as we filled in the papers, added Goldy to the policy and then he asked us “did we want to upgrade our car?”

After discovering we could get a Chevrolet Lacette or a Honda HRV for an extra €2 a day we soon said yes. After the Chevrolet appeared on BBC’S Top Gear we decided that it would be an AWESOME car to have for two weeks, the lure of a high wheel base HRV though was too much to overcome. We booked it.

The car (which from now on shall be referred to as the Pimp-Mobile) rolled up with a small rugged looking man driving blaring out JLS from the stereo. Okay, JLS slightly ruined the drug dealer image but the white paint job and blacked out windows made this motor a force to be reckoned with.

I was given a quick instruction as to the controls of the Pimp-Mobile and we packed out shiz into it and set off into the countryside.

The drive to Stavroulla took about an hour as we drove up to Polis and then across to Argaka. We stopped off for emergency noms too, just for bread and basic whatnots. Anyway I’m quite glad we got here mid afternoon, as if we’d had to find this villa in the dark at 2am or something, I don’t think we would have found it – not saying their instructions are a bit flaky, but they’re not a clear as perhaps they could be. Ah well, we found it after only a couple of missed turns! Flaky doesn’t do it justice, Anneka Rice would have had issues with this one and that’s WITH her chopper !!

The villa is FANTASTIC, 3 double rooms and a twin, massive living space, kidney shaped infinity pool and a great looking outdoor entertainment area. The place is quite awesome, pool looks awesome car is great, but by this time my body was going YOU’VE BEEN UP SINCE FOUR YOU NEED SLEEP !!! so with a bit of music on I lay upon the sofa and apparently snored, (see below) I think they’re just saying it to make me paranoid J

I’m sitting at the dining table, writing this looking at the sun slowly setting over the sea, waiting for the rest of the tribe to arrive.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand REST.

Goldy is snoring. Loudly. Yeah yeah, prove it

I would like to state at this point that Andrew Sweeney fully intends on showing me his cock on this holiday, I’m wondering if Gaz and Jane are aware of this *cough* “Tradition” or are they walking into this hell of terror, I’m wondering if it’s more supportive to tell them and let them fear the moment like I am or just let them walk into it… oh no hang on, they know of it already, the poor souls…….

It’s now like 10:30pm, which whilst it’s 8:30 in “real” time I’ve been up since 4 so leave me alone….. Signing off for day one J

2245hrs,… ooooooooooooooh Arab porn channels!,.. and what is this THE PENTAGON CHANNEL! I can’t wait for another episode of the Grill Sargeant!

Day one for myself and Janey was somewhat more relaxed. We were flying from the undelightful hangar stroke coffee shop that is Luton airport, ludicrously described as “London Luton” in the same geographical sense of proximity as Edinburgh is in Dorset, but as our flight was only leaving at 11.30 we had a reasonably pleasant 9 am start. In fact, things were entirely uneventful (aside from the torrent emerging from my nose as a result of hayfever, which I will spare you any further details of) until we arrived and attempted to locate the pickup point for our hire car. Turns out the chap we were supposed to meet had already met someone else and buggered off, so we were left hanging around and somewhat bewildered. Eventually we did locate the correct bloke, who drove us off to a shed in the middle of a wheat field whilst complaining about airport taxes for having an office on site. While initially alarming, as it appeared we might have accidentally hired a tractor, this turned out to be the same entirely legit rental gaff everyone else had been at earlier on. Unfortunately at this point though they were running out of cars, so we ended up with a Nissan Note with a large dent in the door rather than an SUV. Still, better than a Kia Piccanto, but then again a skateboard would have been better than a Kia Piccanto.

Once we’d had everything on the car explained to us (which I promptly forgot – the guy had said something about either turning the air conditioning on or off before starting the engine. Unfortunately I can’t recall which so I’ve just been alternating in the hope this will only half break things at worst) we headed off to the villa. This all went well until it started to get dark, as this meant that in the gloom we missed the fact that the slightly overgrown sign saying “Liza’s Tavern”, which was our clue for overshooting the villa turning, actually said “Liza’s Tavern, 3km”, meaning we still had a fair way to go. Some off-roading down entirely wrong turns and a few mildly panicky phone calls later and we finally located Andy and Goldy and followed them to the villa. At this point I was obviously too knackered to remember anything else, seeing as I can’t remember anything else. Either that or someone drugged me. I’ll assume the former though as I don’t seem to have had any organs removed for sale on the black market. Anyway, on to day two.