This report covers a trip to Cyprus in September 2002. The main extract is simply a travel diary, however you can also see a short birding report with species lists.

• Diary
• Cyprus birding report
• Map

Diary

Inbound

It had all happened rather more suddenly than we were used to. One day we were dappled with living room paint, racing against time to finish coating the chimneybreast turmeric before the delivery of a new carpet, the next we were trying to find flights in the direction of anywhere still warm in September. And so we found ourselves at short notice inside a gleaming Cyprus Airlines Airbus, where rows of grey and white haired retirees matched in a curious way the striking yellow, brown and blue seat décor. Unprepared to the point of ignorance, slightly disorganised, heading for the sun…

Sitting in the aircraft was probably as good an introduction to Cyprus as could have been expected. Cyprus Airlines did their bit with the bouzouki music before take-off, Cyprus snacks and drinks, and colourful propaganda during the in-flight entertainment.  We were close to being the youngest passengers on the plane, with some native Cypriots sandwiched between elderly ex-patriots, returning to their villas by the sea. Most “normal” holidaymakers presumably take the charter flights. We fished out all our literature and started to swot up on where we were about to go. The couple in front of us apparently had more important concerns – he engrossed in “What men think about sex” and she in “Are artificial breast plants dangerous?” (I’d hazard a guess at “yes” and “yes”…)

After a quite substantial flight (lesson one – Cyprus is a long way away – it’s basically the Middle East), we circled round over a swathe of barren brown plains, simmering beneath a low hazy lemon sun, a far cry from the early September fog that had smothered London on departure. It was 30 degrees on the ground and surprisingly humid. Larnaka Airport was small and we were processed very efficiently. Anita emerged from the tourist office in the arrivals hall with armfuls of brochures, maps and helpful advice, in exchange for the purchase of a large box of duty free cigarettes on behalf of the office manager (lesson two – Cypriots are very understanding of the concept of money). A wild and hairy man called Kostas rented us a large Mitsubishi Lancer at a rate that clearly pained him enormously, such were the alleged commercial woes of the post 9/11 off-season, and we emerged into the warm dusky glow of a Larnaka evening.

Having travelled all that way, the first impressions of the “Britishness” of Cyprus were quite hard-hitting. Pounds in our pocket, driving on the left, roundabouts, British traffic lights, British style registration plates: the motoring infrastructure could have been Lancaster rather than Larnaka. Only the swaying palms, the roadside tavernas and the slight reluctance of the other motorists to indicate hinted at the smell of Mediterranean in the air. The citrus sun sank beyond the barren salt lake on the edge of town, and the world closed in on us as we navigated our way through the centre of the town and headed east along the coast towards the quiet suburb of Livadia.

Not that long ago, “foreignness” was fairly easily experienced. As soon as you arrived at a new place you had to wade through foreignness before you even touched dry land, it foamed around your feet, it stirred in your nostrils, “hello stranger from a strange land”… In our modern globalised world you often have to work a little bit harder, but I am always pleasantly surprised how easily you can feel quite lost in that ultimate icon of capitalist monoculture, the oxymoronic but convenient supermarket. The Livadia supermarket was the only apparent focal point of action in the town and so we decided to use it as a combined supply stop and route finder. Although the rows of household cleaning items and breakfast cereals were all too familiar, the fresh vegetables and the delicatessen sections were delightfully alien. Zucchinis in several different shades of yellow and green, melons of unusual sizes, olives by the bucket and a whole counter of mysterious miniature pastries. The adventure had begun!

There was some lively discussion at the checkout about the location of “Mr Tony’s” house, but we soon had some sound directions. We pulled up in front of a small whitewashed house, where a woman called Yvonne had been patiently waiting for us in a wicker chair overlooking the street. Tony was a patient at Anita’s clinic and lived in London. Yvonne was Tony’s Sri Lankan maid, and “house-sat” his traditional family home in Livadia (lesson three – a lot of Cypriots have Sri Lankan maids). Yvonne dished up a saucepan of potent Cyprus coffee and a tray of pastries of the type we had encountered in the store. We sat in the spartan living room beneath a stern portrait of Tony’s father as Yvonne told us her story, the troubles with her family and the fact that she worked in Cyprus to support her daughter back at home. Tony gave her a very good deal and she basically had the house to herself rent-free for most of the year. We would meet some other Sri Lankans on our travels who could only dream of such an arrangement. She then vanished for an hour and returned with two enormous salad packed kebabs and produced a welcome icy bottle of Cyprus Carlsberg.  The fans whirred and a cat mewed from beneath the wicker chair. Livadia withdrew beneath a hot sea of stars.

Westbound

From Larnaka there are not too many directions in which to travel. Cyprus is a big island, but the dotted red line to the immediate north of Larnaka (clearly labelled on our map as an “administrative” boundary rather than “international”) stretches across the island and pretty much restricts visitors to the side on which they first arrived. To the east of Larnaka lies a stretch of coast dominated by the party town of Agia Napia. To the south is the sea. We had no choice really. Thus far no plan was needed.

The night was hot but at 8a.m., with Livadia seemingly at peace, tepid Mediterranean morning air brought relief before the white stone buildings and plazas were subjected to another baking day. Yvonne was nowhere to be found, so we left a note thanking her for her hospitality and picked up the highway west, just outside the town. Route 1 is the main “motorway” on Cyprus (two lane dual carriageway, fairly devoid of traffic) running south from the capital Lefkosia and then stretching west to the city of Lemosos. The whole journey would take two hours at the very most.

The countryside to the west of Larnaka was fairly hilly, a dry and chalky landscape of rocky slopes and low thorny scrub. An impenetrable haze hid the interior mountains and washed the horizon a peachy grey. Realising that an island tour would be over in one hour on such a road, we pulled off Route 1 onto the old road west and deviated towards the coast through a village called Maroni. Stopping the car at a small cutting we saw flocks of brightly coloured Bee-eaters drifting over the cliff, slowly working their way south to seek a warmer winter. Our own short southern journey was temporarily halted by a failure to persuade the Lancer back into life. The joy’s of automatic gearboxes – is it the brake you have to press when turning the ignition? (We’ll get caught next time again for sure.) Beyond Maroni the “obvious” road gave way to a network of dirt tracks that twisted through small market gardens, temporary greenhouses and fields of vegetables. We halted by a row of sprinklers that each had a Lesser Grey Shrike perched on top, scanning the rich soil in search of small prey. The road ended in a grim town called Zygi, whose industrial plants did not invite further investigation. Even our attempt to pause at a bit of beach was quickly ended by the emergence of a van of military frogmen and a large Alsatian dog.

Our second attempt at spontaneous tourism ended in slight disappointment when we tried to sample the charms of the Agios Georgios monastery, lured in by those irresistible brown road signs (lesson four – there are a lot of places called Agios Georgios in Cyprus). Apart from the off-putting road construction works on the entrance drive, the rustic two storey building was not very welcoming, and the only information we could find outside the building was a sign, clearly painted with passion and compulsion, which stated firmly: “Do not leave your cats here – they give us a problem”. The psychosomatic feline guilt was far too much and so we left.

 Most of the water supplies to tide Cyprus through the arid seasons are stored in a network of interior reservoirs in the foothills of the Troodos Mountains. Germasogeia Dam is one such, hidden just a few kilometres northeast of Lemosos in a bowl of steep sided hills. We dragged the Mitsubishi up a narrow track to the edge of the reservoir in order to find a spot for a bit of lunch. The reservoir seemed another world away from the agricultural coast and the tall apartment blocks of Lemosos, with a huddle of fishermen by the shallow banks being the only other human habitants. Anita dozed in the car while I followed a narrow trail around a small headland, looking out over the flooded wastes, dead trees poking out from the surface as reminders of the artificial origins of the view in front of me.  Small birds jumped in the dense scrub and a noisy flock of Chukars exploded from somewhere beneath the trail and scattered, chuckling like village idiots, along the shore. A flash of white revealed my first encounter with the endemic Cyprus Wheatear – a nondescript dark bird with a bright white rump that was to be iconic in its ubiquity throughout the island. The wheatear launched itself energetically from branch to rock, a restless bird with a flight like a butterfly.

Moving across the northern suburbs of Lemosos, we turned into the village of Episkopi to arrange some lodgings for the night. Episkopi was an archetypical southern European settlement: a maze of tiny roads, squeezed between tall walls and shuttered house fronts, splitting and branching, and soon dispersing any notion of the high street in favour of an urban spaghetti designed to daze the first time visitor. We quickly abandoned any hopes of locating anything in Episkopi by address, but stumbled on a small travel agent in the middle of town, which Anita bravely entered to make some inquiries. She was gone for an age, which turned out to be of course because the assistant was Polish (they’re everywhere…).  Clearly nothing could go wrong from that point on, and indeed within minutes we had a small room at the back of Antony’s Guest House, more intriguingly also described as Antony’s Agrotourist Hotel. Both names are equally evocative, because Antony’s was in fact a converted set of slightly dilapidated farm buildings, imposing high walls leading through into a luxuriant overgrown courtyard, which oozed with Mediterranean charm. Antony himself poured as some homemade lemonade and told us about his project, converting the farm on returning to his home village after 15 years as an architect in the U.K.

Sensible people would have curled up on one of the benches in Antony’s garden, and dozed off the remainder of the afternoon to the hum of insects, busy beneath the bright Cyprus sun. Not having relaxed souls capable of such siesta, we moved on to visit some of the famous archaeological sites to the west of Lemosos. Hoping to catch them in the late afternoon light, we first explored the daunting white cliffs that are a feature of this stretch of coast. We hiked down a broad trail from the top of the cliffs to a small fishing harbour next to a quiet piece of shore referred to as Quarry Beach. A mass of white rock loomed over us, and Eleonara’s Falcons sailed acrobatically overhead, wheeling in to land on almost invisible perches in the rock face. The faint cry of young birds echoed pleadingly from the cliffs, for Eleonora’s Falcons carefully time their breeding season to coincide with the autumn southbound migration of millions of tasty European warblers and hirundines (Eleonoras are true Cypriots it seems). We stuck our toes in the Med for the first time and watched giant maroon and gold wasps feeding on the nectar of thistles, whose spiky sapphire flower heads were the sizes of satsumas. On the distant skyline a row of masts and rooftops marked the presence of the British garrison at Kensington Cliffs (lesson five – it is really hard to escape from Britain on this island).

On the other side of the road from Quarry Beach was the Sanctuary of Apollo archaeological site. This was a real disappointment, a sort of demonstration of all the worst ways of presenting history to the masses. Bewildered visitors could stumble in a seemingly uncontrolled manner over a number of unexplained piles of rubble. A pair of intact Roman columns attached to a fragment of wall was about the only section of the remains that didn’t leave everything to the imagination. In fact the whole place looked like a bombsite.

The nearby remnants of Kourion Stadium were just as bemusing, but pleasantly serene. Isabelline Wheatears hopped along a low crumbling wall at the edge of a large stone paved area, and beyond the stadium ruins an expanse of low heath harboured tiny Cyprus and Sardinian Warblers, scratching from the depths of the vegetation and occasionally flitting out to briefly perch on the tops of bushes. We judged the light now perfect for a romantic sunset visit to the famous Kourion remains, but on arrival we found the gates locked and an unhelpful guard shrugged his shoulders and said that they were closed.

Back at Antony’s the day drew magically to an end, with the sweet scent of summer blossom in the air, while sparrows chirped manically from the dense tangle of jacaranda outside our room. As the light slipped away the seeping of sparrows gave way to the piping of cicadas. Anita discovered a treasure trove of Polish magazines in our room and a loud German voice harangued Antony’s Sri Lankan (surprise!) housemaid. We dined out in the front yard of a small taverna by the main road, ducking for cover when a brief rain shower appeared from nowhere and astonished the locals by precipitating from an apparently cloudless sky. Mousaka and calamari, washed down by Cyprus Keo beer and some complimentary Cyprus Orange Liqueurs.

The large fruit tree outside Antony’s was partly lit by the street and after climbing back up from the taverna we witnessed some enormous bats wheeling in and chattering from the foliage. They looked like fruit bats – in Europe? – and apparently they were. Egyptian Fruit bats maintain their sole European foothold on the island. Back within the farmyard fortress we tested the ancient snooker table in one of the large communal rooms on one side of the courtyard. The table was passable, but the well-loved cues badly needed some chalk, so the foul shots accumulated at alarming pace. Finally the black sank, dropping neatly into its soft pocket, and we followed its example.

The next day began fairly unsatisfactorily. My body itched all night from either insects in the air, or more likely micro life in the mattress. The noisy fan kept me awake, and then to cap it all the fields literally exploded into life. Wednesday is one of the permitted “shooting days” in Cyprus, and some Cypriots take to the land armed to the teeth in pointless pursuit of one of their least defensible “traditions” – the right to blow the feathers off anything that flies within the range of their firearms. We departed early, and drove for fifteen minutes to the Akotiri Peninsula, which encloses a salt lake surrounded by marshes and tipped by a fortified British army base. The lake was dry and there was no evidence of the Demoiselle Cranes that apparently pass in small numbers at this time of year. Literally hundreds of swallows and martins zigzagged over the saltbush, under the watch of the military towers and the tall radio masts of the aerial farm at the entrance to the base.

We hiked out through a tall cool eucalyptus plantation to the edge of the dry Akotiri reed beds, where every rustle from within seemed magnified by the crispness of the tall blades of sedge. A flock of Night Herons flew silently above us and returning Golden Orioles, drably plumaged, flew over the plantation. At the edge of the reeds, a band of stunted saltbush stretched out to the edge of the arid lake. Despite still being early morning, the sun was already intense and we regretted not bringing water or hats as we completed a loop through this exposed and harsh environment. It was certainly good birding country, with vast clouds of Bee-eaters in the sky, Rollers perched out on exposed bushes, Spectacled Warblers flitting amongst the scattered vegetation and Pallid Harriers gracefully flapping over the margins of the lake. Any fleeting notions of wilderness were constantly kept in check by the steady roar of military jets banking over the lake, and the grating chop of helicopter blades. Perched on the edge of the “civilised world”, Cyprus is but a footfall away from troubled territories, and indeed has some of its own.

Akotiri is one of the most famous birding spots on the island of Cyprus, but apart from the salt marsh we found other areas such as the Phassouri reed beds and the dry stretches of clay along Lady Mile’s Beach very disappointing. More worryingly, we even had trouble finding a taverna for a coffee. In the end we quit the frustrating heat and refuelled both the car and the larder in preparation for moving inland, leaving behind us with a degree of relief the shimmering Akotiri Salt Lake, blurred radio masts and distant roar of thrusting jets.

To the mountains

Behind Episkopi a small road wound its way up from the roasting coastal plain into the foothills. Neat rounded hills with dark green terraces, pressed out from tanned grassy slopes, streaked by chalk tracks. It looked a hot landscape, but the air was just a little less severe than down by the sea. We halted at the village of Omodos, and walked the narrow streets in mid afternoon. What was once a very sleepy hamlet had now become a coach tour venue, and although the town retained an amount of charm with its whitewashed walls, pots of flowers and trellises of vines, purple grapes bursting from overhanging branches, there was something rather tacky about the outbreak of lace shops, and sooty clad women, perched street-side on wooden stools, churning out lace doilies. A little higher into the mountains from Omodos the houses began to look more like chalets, and the narrow main street of Pano Platres almost had the look of an alpine resort. We picked up the main road north from Lemosos and climbed even higher on a broad highway that swept around the curves of a narrowing valley. Forests of pine now hugged the slopes and the air began to take on a distinct edge.

The road summitted at Troodos, a spacious little town on top of the world, and we plunged back down for about one kilometre, following the signs to the Troodos campground. Cyprus is not blessed with many campgrounds, but Troodos has a fine one. Scattered amongst an open pine forest, the sites were rocky but offered shelter and privacy. It was quite cool and we had to finally empty our packs in search of jumpers. Pitching tent next to a big concrete table, we made ourselves fully at home and were soon joined by a dusky Cyprus Jay – the same species as in western Europe, just a little less dapper. The Jay was very keen to snatch scraps from the table, but only when our backs were turned. Meanwhile most of the rest of the Cyprus endemic subspecies made themselves busy around our camp with Cyprus Short-toed Treecreeper and Cyprus Coal Tit in the pines, and a Cyprus Wren singing weakly from a patch of brambles. There were plenty vans and tents in the camping area but most of them looked like permanently located outfits that were rarely occupied. There were very few people home and the camp taverna without business. We cooked up some of our Akotiri vegetables and fought off the chill of the mountain air by drinking just a tiny bit too much of a bottle of Filfar orange liqueur - nothing wrong with a spot of bourgeois living when you’re on holiday. With each drop we became less and less significant beneath a dazzling southern European night sky, framed between Mount Olympus (the highest point of Cyprus) and a serrated horizon of pines. Not bad for two pounds a night.

The next morning a warming sun poked over the ridges surrounding the campground. It certainly was needed because the showers were icy cold and washing was an act of bravery. We left the car in a deserted car park in the centre of Troodos and walked along one of the marked trails that wound along a ridge to the south of the town in the direction of Makrya Kontaka. We hadn’t realised how fortified the area around Troodos is, for the path skirted a large military barracks before following the contour precariously, first through mature open pine forest, into a small plantation and then over a stony scree. From here the trail became less distinct and began to descend until it dropped onto a broad vehicle track. We scattered some Chukars and picked up a walking trail out to the end of a small promontory. Just as we crossed the track a military jeep pulled up and scrutinised us carefully from the road as we did our best to hike in as innocent a manner as possible. It was just like walking through customs – you know you’re in the clear (well… most of the time) but… The distant watchers seemed to lose interest and we shortly vanished from their view and emerged at the end of the track at a lookout. We stared out into a summer haze of distant hills, with clouds of swallows and martins taking advantage of a gentle breeze to swirl south over the pass.

Troodos was jumping when we returned to the car, and several buses had offloaded some trade for the street markets. It was all very pleasant, but we felt that Cyprus probably had more secrets to reveal than we would find by staying there another night, so we returned to camp and packed up the tent. A further kilometre down from the campground we found the small Kampos tou Liavadiou picnic area in which to shelter from the sun while we had some lunch. Just as we were polishing off the last of our hummus rolls there was a faint grumbling sound, which I first assumed was a high jet or perhaps military manoeuvres. It became rapidly clear that Anita had won this argument as some pitch clouds loomed over the ridge and light rain began to fall. Being parked near the top of a ridge, in a forest, in a thunderstorm, caused a few anxious moments, but the weather passed through fairly quickly. It left in its wake a messy unpredictable patchwork sky, which kept us on edge as we followed a short trail around the steep sides of the hill. The freshly showered air scented sweetly of ancient black pine and twisted juniper, examples of which both formed fabulous natural sculptures, framing huge views down the valley. A small flock of Cyprus Crossbills flitted in the foliage, Spotted Flycatchers hawked from exposed limbs and large groups of Cyprus Coal Tits followed us as we followed the trail through beds of verdant ferns. This was by far the better of our two mountain strolls.

The main road north of Troodos dropped spectacularly down Karvounas Pass, clinging to the western edge of the valley and offering views of, amongst other things, abandoned asbestos mines, which rather scoured the vista. We made an unsuccessful visit to the small town of Kakopetria, discovering too late that the church we hoped to visit there was in fact seven kilometres out of town and, according to our guidebook, only twenty minutes from closing its doors to visitors for the day. We just made it, arriving at the tiny UNESCO listed 10^th Century Agios Nicolaos tis Stegis Mon just as the grumpy old proprietor was closing his doors. Standing on its own in a sheltered riverside glade, the tiny church looked more like an idyllic English country tavern than a place of religious worship. The fading walls of the dimly lit interior were covered in precious ancient murals and pressed in on the visitor in a rather disturbing way. In classical tourist fashion we were in, and out, in less than ten minutes and back on our journey deeper into the hills.

Our intended destination of Stavros tis Psokas was about 25 kilometres west as the Hooded Crow flies, but the route over the mountainous spines of the island was rather tortuous and slow, compensated by yet more amazing views of sunny slopes cloaked in pines, white church domes in rusty roofed villages, and narrow gullies smothered in glacier-like flows of small holly-coloured oaks. The steep straw slopes of the ravines were patched with dark olive shrubs. One ridge consisted of vast blades of bare rock, thrust skywards. On another ridge a massive white cross signalled towards the heavens, gradually receding but distinctly visible for over half an hour in the rear view mirror. The road wrestled like a snake, switching ahead of us in endless coils.

With the sun hesitating in the western sky we reached the remote monastery of Kykkos and decided to take a quick look. It was just as well that we did, for Kykkos was truly stunning. I cannot recall the last time that a building took my breath away in quite such unexpected fashion. The simple stone walls and rustic courtyards were edged with two storeys of cream pillared archways, the roof was neatly tiled in clay and the corridors lined with marble. It was however the array of dazzling gold plaited mosaics that made Kykkos outstanding. Gentle late sunshine brought them into life, a Madonna and child above a balustrade, purple peafowl above a door mantle, a climbing vine sprouting from a shapely vase to the right of the front gate, all set in frames of golden squares. Groups of visitors shuffled respectfully amidst burly bearded men of faith towards the heavily adorned chapel at the rear of the monastery where a ceremony was under way beneath gigantic chandeliers.  Kykkos is not to be missed.

The rest of the road to Stavros was not easy to drive as tiny rock falls littered the surface, making each turn potentially hazardous, and the tightest bends seemed to feature ominous gaps in the crash barriers. At last the twisting lessened and the road descended in gentler curves down a narrow valley in the small hamlet of Stavros. We easily located the Stavros Hostel, a beautiful colonial two storey building on a rise looking out over an ocean of pine. Unfortunately it was deserted, and we soon discovered that Stavros is really nothing more than a small forestry station and a little taverna. It was getting rather late and things were not looking good on the accommodation front when we discovered signs to a “campground”. Driving the car rather edgily down a heavily damaged dirt track, we discovered two small level areas of hard dirt beneath a grove of tall chestnut trees by a tiny stream. It was completely deserted, in fact looked closed. A rudimentary cooking shelter, a very basic toilet block consisting of a hole in the ground and a shed from whose roof dangled a rusty showerhead construed the entire infrastructure. It may have been somewhat hideous and glorious to behold, but most importantly it would do as an overnight location.

Later in the evening, after dinner and a Keo beer at the taverna, which had been surprisingly busy with forest workers playing cards and staring vaguely at a suspended television set in the back room, we sat at the concrete picnic table next to our tent. A faint murmur of conversation drifted down from the taverna and the distant engine of a forest jeep whined as it ground its way up the hill. The steady trickle of the stream provided background to the regular crash of chestnuts falling from the trees. A Scops Owl struck out from a dark corner, regular piping almost like a frog. Although the lights of a forest guard post just 100 metres down the valley glowed all night, we seemed to be in a protected bowl, wrapped up in chestnut trees and night sounds, hidden from the watching world.

In the early hours of the morning I woke up needing to relieve my bladder. I stuck my head out of the tent to test the temperature and became aware immediately of a certain presence. Maybe it was a crack of a breaking twig, perhaps just a cloud of steamy breath, for the air was cool and damp and a silky mist hung in the valley. Some thirty metres away, by the edge of the stream, stood a large mammal, taking a drink. As I watched, it too must have become aware of contact and raised its heavy head. Dramatically silhouetted against the floodlights of the forestry guard post were the magnificently spiralled horns of a male moufflon, the wild sheep of Cyprus. We both froze for a few moments until an invisible signal alerted the moufflon and it bounded across the stream, crashing over the road into the dense vegetation on the opposite side of the gully and hurtling noisily up the hill, closely followed by another animal, and perhaps a third – it was over in but a second or two.

The morning was cool and the sun showed no signs of ever reaching into the campground bowl, so we left the tent to dry and headed off for a hike into the hills. Our first stop was the forestry station headquarters, where we solemnly paid the sum of one Cyprus pound for our night’s camping. This proved to be a lesson in Cypriot bureaucracy as the poor ranger had to complete several ledgers, as well as breaking the one Cyprus pound down into several smaller fees, which were supplemented by three different taxes, until the total summed back to one pound. This was then a fact that he checked with some agonisingly slow and painful hand arithmetic, while we observed silently and patiently. Ten minutes later, proudly bearing our new receipt, we strode back into the sunlight.  Just beyond the forest station was a high fenced rocky gully, where a small herd of skittish moufflons ran around a pen, evading visitors who could circle the enclosure on a steep and narrow trail. The moufflon, known to have existed in abundance in Hellenic-Roman times (and apparently introduced to the island during the Neolithic period), declined rapidly in the 20^th Century to the point of becoming critically endangered with only 15 individuals on the island in 1937.  Paphos Forest was declared a moufflon reserve in 1939 and from “hundreds” in the 1960’s, there are now apparently “thousands” in the Paphos Forest around Stavros. The breeding enclosure at Stavros was established as part of a release programme that has resulted in this substantial recovery. As if to emphasise the point, and to slightly belittle my nocturnal experience, a female moufflon was relaxing by the side of the road just outside the taverna, nonchalantly chewing on the verge.

Our hike began with a steep climb up the Stavros road to a small trailhead from which a narrow track zigzagged into the forest. This soon picked up a contour that guided us across several broad rocky screes separated by stands of elfin oak draped in lichen, which grew in the small gullies that plunged down the side of the mountain. A bit higher up we re-entered pine forest and eventually emerged on the back of a narrow ridge. The day had brightened beautifully and we looked back over Stavros and beyond, where the slopes were scarred with clearings, many of which seemed to be part of major revegetation projects. With the exception of Jays and Coal Tits there were few birds in the forest. On the ridge a Woodlark briefly alighted at the edge of a clearing, and a Short-tailed Treecreeper hopped amongst the low branches of one of the elfin oaks. The trail looped back down to the road, and we dropped back into Stavros, where the tent had dried but remained in pleasant shade for a peaceful lunch beneath the grove of chestnuts.

The road north from Stavros was new, but easily as tricky a drive as any of the day before. The smooth bitumen carved a complex path through lime green pine plantations that covered entire slopes, growing on orange sun-baked soils. There were faster tracks to the coast, but none of them were sealed and we were unsure whether the Mitsubishi was up to the task. This northern section of Paphos Forest seemed to be quite remote and we saw almost no signs of life, including other vehicles, save for the occasional white flash of a Cyprus Wheatear dashing from its roadside post. After about an hour of wrestling with the road we started to obtain glimpses of deep azure sea, tantalisingly slipping behind lower and lower ridges as we gradually descended. Finally, at a small lookout, we were able to get out of the car, watch a lizard scuttle into cover beneath some dry spiny yellow flowers, and take in an unhindered view of the northern coast of Cyprus. Hot again, and the sea beckoned.

Northwest

We reached the coast at Pachyammos, just west of a curious little enclave of Turkish held territory, and pulled over at a busy little harbour next to Pomos Point. The real estate agents had recently invaded the tiny headland and Pomos Point appeared to be in the process of being converted from peaceful fishing port to holiday village. A small crowd of sun seekers were basking in the shelter of the point and we had to fight off several offers of rental sunloungers as we strolled around the rocky point to enjoy a gentle sea breeze. Several half finished luxury buildings promised the lure of “luxury apartments”, but for now only supported a Masked Shrike chasing insects in the wild grasses that swayed in the welcoming onshore wind.

The coast from Pomos to Polis was quite uninspiring, except for a brief sighting of a lone Auduoins Gull silently gliding down the coast, with the foothills receding into an agricultural landscape dotted with rather ugly villages and more holiday apartment developments. Polis seemed to be a pleasant little town, but was very quiet, even in the main square, where a handful of tourists sipped cold drinks in front of deserted cafes. We engaged in a rather bizarre hunt for the tourist information office, which we finally discovered had recently moved to the edge of the town centre. A tall blond woman took great delight in telling us that camping was strictly forbidden in the Akamas area and directed us to the municipal camping area on to the north of town. It seemed as good a bet as any.

The Polis campground was by the beach in a stand of unbelievably tall eucalypts, which made it visible for miles along the coast in either direction. It was clearly a busy place in peak season, but in September was reasonably quiet, with just a few tents and occupied vans scattered around the perimeters. We selected a sheltered spot set back from the beach next to tall dense reeds that formed a ring right around the camping area. These became a dense jungle on the opposite side of the camping ground, where a seasonal river evidently flowed out to the sea. In another corner, a circle of army style tents marked a permanent tour group’s claim, and an English man of indeterminable age with a main of shaggy blond hair, body tattoos and clad only in a pair of surfing shorts was gathering wood in preparation for a night of partying by the fire. The beach itself was of pebbles, not sand, but this did not deter the rows of sunbathers who were stretched out along it, in front of a small bar. We trudged a little bit along the beach, beyond the crowds, and plunged in for our first taste of the Mediterranean Sea. The waves slurped rather uncomfortably towards the shore, but it was cool and very refreshing.

As dusk fell three Purple Herons took off from the trees and were glimpsed through windows in the distant foliage as they circled above the camping area, barking in a guttural fashion before flying off around the coast. As we were cooking dinner a chorus of Scops Owls started piping. Their gentle calls were infuriatingly difficult to locate. After suspiciously encircling another camper’s caravan while he manned his barbeque, I successfully persuaded one owl to come closer to my headtorch beam for excellent views. Bouzouki music commenced from the direction of the Englishman’s camp, and we were pleased to discover that the beach bar was still open for a cool beer by the sea. The waves broke gently on the rounded pebbles of the beach, and we stretched out on some abandoned sunloungers to soak in not the sun, but the sight of The Plough shining down from another gorgeously clear Cyprus sky.

We rose fairly early the next morning and left camp by some rugged farm tracks that edged around fields of stubble and tobacco, into which Black Francolins scuttled for cover. A narrow road continued for about 10 kilometres west of Polis to the Baths of Aphrodite, where it ended in a large car park. The Baths of Aphrodite is one of the few gateways to the north-western Akamas Peninsula of Cyprus, a hilly and relatively undeveloped “wilderness” area, much lauded in travel guides and promotional literature. A long coastal path heads west from Baths of Aprodite in the direction of Cape Arnaoutis, and our plan was to hike towards it for as long as we had the energy. The Baths themselves were a rather inevitable non-event. A eucalyptus lined creek reached the sea, and just in from the coast were some tiny pools within a dense grove of vegetation. Whatever magical properties are claimed of the water here, the reality was that it seemed to have become a shady Feral Pigeon roost, and not much more. We moved past fairly quickly and strode out along an unsealed road that hugged the edge of the cliffs overlooking the vast azure Chrysochou Bay.

If you are naïve enough to believe the informative signs then this is a dangerous route closed to vehicular traffic. Clearly we were the only people who took this information at face worth, because as the day dragged on, more and more vehicles trundled out along this track, fully intent on setting up camp for the day at the secluded beach of their choice. This minor grumble apart, the road out to Cape Arnaoutis was a stunning hike, first cutting along the cliff through dense thorny scrub, and then dropping down to the sea at an idyllic little bay, where we cooled off in the crystal clear water, watching tiny fish nibbling our toes, while a Kingfisher darted overhead. The road then crossed a narrow agricultural strip that was jumping with small migrating birds: Yellow Wagtails, Red-backed Shrikes, Whinchats, Short-toed Larks, a Hoopoe. The coastline unfolded in a series of low limestone points, jutting out into peacock blue sea, separated by boulder-strewn bays, fringed by low straggly shrubbery whose roots competed in the rocky joints for precious moisture. There was indeed a wonderful feeling of freedom about hiking out along the Akamas coast, which remained even once our initial solitude was broken, first by a convoy of tour boats speeding along the coast, and then by the procession of four-wheel drivers.

We’re still not sure if we reached the cape or not, but we definitely reached a very natural turning point, where a brick cairn topped by a small cross poked up from a headland, and several cruise boats bobbed up and down in a small cove. Having munched a lunch of dip and crackers, the return leg was much tougher as we were running low on water and the sun was beginning to ware us down. The mercurial landscape of the cooler morning air seemed to turn harsher and more brittle, lizards crackled for cover, spiny flower heads withered in the sun, clouds of dust drifted over the road as the occasional vehicle pushed towards the point. We boosted morale with another fine swim, and began to appreciate the Akamas once again. Tall flowers like lupins stood like pokers by the edge of the track, tiny white blossoms beginning to open on their elongated heads. Cyprus Wheaters perched prominently, rolling their tails seductively, and vast patterns of light shimmered out on Chrysochou Bay.

The last few kilometres were a bit of a trudge, and the relief of reaching the car again masked the disappointment at returning to a bazaar of tourist peddlers, crowds of Aphrodite visitors pushing up the little trail to look at the pigeons. A fresh orange juice at the café never tasted so good. We were whacked. We stopped briefly at the village of Lassi on our way back to Polis, where an English birder babbled incessantly on the harbour wall as we watched some truly amazingly large flocks of birds far out to sea, reeling and twisting like a swarm of bees just beyond our binocular vision. There must have been literally thousands of birds in the flock, and given that they appeared to settle on the water occasionally, and given the migration patterns, subsequent research suggests that they were most likely to have been Garganey.

The showers at camp were very much appreciated and, as the afternoon quietly slipped away, a  Cetti’s Warbler started calling from the tall grass next to the tent and a  splendid male Black Francolin ventured into the clearing just behind us, sadly created by the thoughtless campers who hacked away at the reeds for fuel and kindling for their bonfires. Also appreciated was the fish mezes that we wolfed al fresco at the small Arsinoe fish restaurant in Polis. I am not quite sure how many of their customers can normally eat five whole fish between two people, but we gave it our best shot, although even 16 kilometres of fat burning had not created enough space to do the dishes full justice.

Early the next morning I took a stroll on the deserted beach. A steady sea breeze was ruffling the reeds at the mouth of the river and a flock of large birds appeared over the horizon, beating inshore from the sea. I watched them for ten minutes, coming closer and closer until I could identify them as 15 Grey Herons, curiously accompanied by one Purple Heron, making for land after a long flight over the water. Migration is a truly wondrous thing. These massive birds, having spent their summer by the bank of a fishpond in Ukraine, fishing behind a watermill in Georgia, or maybe stalking a Belorussian canal, had all come together as one flock and were progressively working their way south towards Africa. I don’t know why it should be so awe-inspiring, but it really is. The Heron’s stay on the north coast of Cyprus would probably be just about as long as ours, but our impending journey south was considerably more modest.

Southwest

Evretou Dam was consumed by a silence that filled the huge void between the top of the dam, the placid reservoir and the scorched yellow valley that lay beneath it. A lone Moorhen pumped noiselessly across the surface of the water, but otherwise nothing stirred. We were some 20 kilometres south of Polis, working our way slowly towards Paphos. Having time on our hands, we deviated west from Evretou towards the village of Miliou, climbing on narrow roads through cultivated hills of orchards, winding through deserted hamlets up towards a ridge of low hills, always hearing the cheerful reeling of Bee-eaters somewhere high above.

In one such nameless village, we stopped to look at an ancient church, and lured into a small herb garden we were accosted by yet another Sri Lankan maid who had yet another tale to tell. She explained that she was a virtual slave to a 91-year-old woman who spent most of her days sleeping in one of the cottages near the church. The maid’s husband had been involved in an accident in Sri Lanka and she had been forced to come to Cyprus to support her family. No holidays, no permission to travel, nobody to speak to, and almost three years now in this tiny village. She wanted money for a phone card, and there seemed little reason to doubt her story, which sounded all too plausible. An air of menace had permeated this tranquil little place, and we drove off, leaving uncomfortably unanswered questions behind us.

Crossing the hills by way of Kathikas, the west coast of the island soon appeared beneath us, as part of a sweeping view that extended all the way to the city of Paphos. We detoured to Cape Drepano, which boasted an Agios Georgios of its own, but all the monuments seemed to be closed, being a Sunday. At the cape a beautiful marble church sat on the cliff top, above a harbour, busy mainly with worshippers of the sun, although worshippers of less visible deities were arriving at the beckoning of the bells from the top of the cliff. There was no shade here and the swimming not particularly attractive, so we decided to move on.

It was quite touch-and-go as to whether we would ever have met Snake George. The rather tacky billboard by the side of the road for “Snake George’s Reptile Park” put us in two minds, but somehow chance favoured discovery and we decided to give it a go. The concrete pits within a high-wired enclosure did not look all that promising, but curiosity had already been whetted and so we paid the token entry fee and stumbled in. Snake George himself turned out to be a sun-baked ex-pat of Germanic origin who was evidently one of Cyprus’ leading herpetologists. Not only was he full of information on the native reptile fauna, but he was also pushing conservation and had some sorry tales to tell that were as predictable as they were depressing. Cultural attitudes towards wildlife in Cyprus are rather strange to say the least, and Snake George had plenty to say about the Cypriot hunting habits, as well as the various problems he has personally had with people trying to threaten his collection. He was a man with a passion and the hour or so we spent with him was highly informative. We were able to clarify some of our own sightings, and enjoyed playing hunt the grass snake in his enclosures. If you ever go to Cyprus, you really must visit Snake George…

In need of a swim we called in at Coral Bay, but here saw the side of Cyprus that we had thus far succeeded in avoiding. Tower blocks, expensive car parks, narrow sandy beaches with rows of blue parasols spreading like fungi towards an aquatic arena where chocolate bodies bobbed up and down and jet skiers growled in foaming circles. Nein danke.

Paphos is a pretty big town. Entering from the north along a broad boulevard adorned by billboards you could almost be anywhere., save for the regular brown signs indicating destinations such as the “Tombs of the Kings” and “Paphos Mosaics”. The town centre was quite compact and on the other side we picked up a promenade that followed the sea frontage, passing dozens of hotels and beachfront restaurants, small groups of brightly coloured holidaymakers spilling onto the street, air-conditioned coaches parked by the kerb. Gradually the completed developments petered out in favour of building projects underway. A seemingly endless sequence of roundabouts directed us past enormous hotels on the sea front, slightly more bewildered tourists standing at bus stops, vast building sites on the landward side and ultimately a large aqua park. Passing around all of these we finally joined a road to nowhere, which stretched beyond the last of the Paphos cranes and entered agricultural land, following a long stony beach, whose pebbles the Mediterranean was gently lapping. You’d expect a tourist town of the significance of Paphos to have a fairly sizeable camping ground, but the last building in Paphos seemed to be the Xenon Beach campground, where a monstrous concrete club stood in front of a rusty barrier, beyond which a grove of gnarled trees sheltered a couple of vans. Could this really be it?

It seems that it was, and the Indian proprietor whose garbled English made heavy going informed us that we were the sole residents bar one. He was even keener to indicate a sneaky back route in to the campground that avoided him the pain of having to come out and lift the entrance barrier every time he was surprised by the arrival of a guest. We found a shady spot, assembled a makeshift table and chairs from a few planks and bits of breezeblock and made ourselves suitably at home.  And into the bargain, it was only two minutes of padding through the hedge and down the side of an overgrown field to the sea…

Guidebooks are generally useful things, and almost always pay their way, however Lonely Planet Cyprus was a pretty consistent let down all the way. Paphos was its finest hour. We retraced our tortuous route through the roundabouts to visit some of the archaeological sites towards the tail end of the afternoon. Tombs of the Kings – shut 2 hours earlier than Lonely Planet advice; Paphos Headland – totally fenced off and closed by 17.30 – not free to wander around as per Lonely Planet; the recommended Avgerinos Restaurant looked like it had been out of business for a while (popular with Cypriots, food genuine, not over-priced and excellently cooked). We were getting a bit fed up! Fortunately Hondros, the “oldest restaurant in Paphos”, was still open and so we soothed frayed tourist nerves in the Hondros garden with another bowl of mousaka beneath a balmy sky, before retreating to the deserted Xenon campground and listening to the gentle crashing of waves on the pebbly shore.

Our archaeological day in Paphos began in bracing style with a swim in the surprisingly cold sea, lying back above the shingle and watching flocks of migrating swallows skimming low over the water in steady procession southeast along the coast. We started breakfast in camp, listening to Black Francolins calling above the zipping of sprinklers in the adjacent field, and then completed morning nourishment with a strong Cyprus coffee on the Paphos promenade, where a healthy sea breeze swept menus from the tabletops and kept the waiter busy rescuing frisky table umbrellas.

The Tombs of the Kings was open this time, so we joined the many other visitors on a slow shuffle over the baking rocks, extremely appreciative of the offshore wind that tantalised rather more than it refreshed. The underground remains of merchant burial chambers exceeded my expectations, especially as above ground the site just looked more of geographical rather than historical interest. The tombs were generally cool and occasionally columns and staircases were quite intact. Small fiery-tailed lizards raced between the rocks, and we chased them with our cameras in post Snake George enthusiasm. Just as impressive as the tombs were the four metre high thistles that thrust skywards, looking easily as historic as the artefacts beneath their roots.

The Paphos mosaics archaeological site was also well worth spending a few hours wandering around. Legendary as a spring migration hotspot, the Paphos headland area was pretty birdless by mid-morning, save for a Kestrel perched atop the lighthouse and the occasional eruption of Crested Lark song from the fields of weeds. We were surprised at the degree of public access to this site, with visitors freely milling around teams of rather unlikely looking archaeologists, who were piecing together fragments of the massive Roman mosaics that have been only relatively recently unearthed beneath the surface of the headland.

My midday it really had got too hot to be stumbling around in the open, so after an unsuccessful attempt to locate a lunch venue that wasn’t essentially a burger bar, we had a refreshing fruit juice on the rather jazzy Paphos pier and drove back to camp via a supermarket. Equipped with the necessaries to conjure up a Greek salad, we perched on the breezeblocks, relaxed to the restless ticking of Olivaceous Warblers and watched a couple of Marsh Harriers sailing overhead. I spent rather too much time on my four o’clock swim, and my skin tingled with regrets for some time afterwards.

Around 6pm we decided to explore the part of Paphos that lies inland from the sea, the older more commercial town often referred to as Ano Paphos. This part of the town was perched on the top of a hill overlooking the coast, and was pleasantly cool as we wandered its empty streets in the early evening. Sitting in a café watching life go by was the only thing worth doing, as Ano Paphos seemed incredibly dead. Just before sun down we witnessed an extraordinary sight, as the sun seemed to hover just above the level of the sea and cast shafts of light heavenwards in the manner of an implausible renaissance painting. Just as extraordinary was our attempt to leave Ano Paphos, when darkness and our inability to master the one-way system led to a frightening half hour of crazy driving around the side streets of town, seeking in vain any road that would take us back downhill to the coast. We drove around like lost rats in a sewer, crossing one square on at least three separate occasions, until by luck rather than any design we found a narrow street that plunged down the hill into darkness and emerged in the back streets of Paphos proper. It was a most disturbing experience, almost matched by our attempts to take fuel. Cyprus has embraced the concept of automatic fuel pumps, so that after trading hours you need to feed cash or plastic into a machine before it will dispense you fuel. Our plastic failed and we had no cash, and another half hour was fretted away until we managed to get enough change to put something into the tank. In the end, a very tiring day…

Towards Lefkosia

We woke to another fine warm day by the coast and packed up camp, leaving the chattering geckoes on the roof of the shower block, and headed off to find a rural breakfast spot. About 15 kilometres east of Paphos the massive Asprokremmos (or Aprokremnos, or Aspokremmos, in fact I’ve never travelled anywhere where the variations of spelling on maps, road signs, guide books and other reference literature has varied so astonishingly as Cyprus) Dam held back water from another of the inland rivers just before it penetrated the coast. Beneath the dam, a small track to the base of the concrete wall ended in a couple of deep reedy pools, relative oases on the seaward side. A small flock of Garganey flapped nervously into the air, and a few Little Grebes and a couple of migrant warblers sheltered amongst the tall bulrushes. Anita’s decision to wait it out in the car paid off as she would have been less than pleased at the sight of a Large Black Whipsnake writhing across the track and slithering into the sedge (common, completely harmless - Snake G). We found a shady spot beneath some pines to have our morning repast and then continued along the coast.

Beyond the village of Kouklia we turned briefly inland to visit the remains of the Temple of Aphrodite. It was uncomfortably hot trekking up to the small museum and archaeological site, but at least there was some information in English to digest as well as some amazing artefacts – a chalk bathtub from 1200BC, a 3000 year-old urn… it almost beggared belief. It seemed so much more enlightening to see these items where they were discovered, rather than bunched together in a basement in central London. This site had been the centre for an Aphrodite cult, whose main activities apparently revolved around worshipping tall conical bits of stone. Weird. The ruins were very much as described, pillaged of their interesting bits by various museums, and now primarily a home to dozens of Agama Lizards (Harduns) who raced amongst the disintegrating walls, competing for prominent sunning spots on the tops of broken columns or crumbling pillars.

Aphrodite (Aphroditis, Afrodites, Afrodites) also appeared a further few kilometres down the coast in the name of a famous rock that bulged just offshore on a stretch of road that clung precariously to the coast. To see the rock we had to park on the landward side and cross underneath the road by means of a tunnel that commenced in a sensationally expensive roadside café where a cola was almost the same price as a pint of beer in a London pub. Rather unfortunately our visit clashed with the arrival of two coaches of Russians, who swarmed over the tiny beach. One girl in tight luminous orange shorts posed seductively for her partner on a small rock before stripping down to a minimal lemon bikini and strutting into the water. Another couple of women shamelessly peeled off their clothes by the edge of the sea and then compared their relative swimwear fits with much public tugging and close examination of brief lines. It was a little bit much. The thorny plants growing on the margins of the beach were heavily adorned with ties of plastic and paper, apparently good luck charms, but also an effective way of converting a local beauty spot into something that resembled a landfill site. Onwards onwards…

Some thirty minutes later we completed a circle by arriving at Episkopi once again, and we even returned to the centre of the village because it was the only place for miles in any direction where we knew there was a payphone. After several unsuccessful attempts on previous days, I finally made contact with my old office mate Stamatis, from Adelaide days, a crazy Greek who was currently marooned at the University of Cyprus in Lefkosia. Four hours notice didn’t seem a lot to forewarn someone of an impending visit, but he took the news with grace and we adjusted the travel plans accordingly. We also took the time to pop in to Kourion (open this time) and take a look at this iconic Roman site, where ongoing archaeological work is steadily uncovering a whole Roman town. However our initial attempt to visit Kourion at sundown had been a good one. Kourion in late morning was stiflingly hot, and packed with throngs of visitors. It was that monument too far, the mosaic beyond the pale, just another pile of stones, and our nerves were very frayed by the time we decided to get back on the road to Lefkosia.

Lefkosia (Nicosia, nobody seems even able to agree on the name of the capital of Cyprus) does lie in the middle of the island, but under the artificial administrative boundaries of the early 21^st Century, it lies in the north-east corner of the part that we were allowed to drive our hired car around. The ninety-minute option was to follow the motorway from Episkopi along the cast and up to the capital. We opted instead for the one-hundred-and-fifty-minute option of taking another look at the middle of the island by cutting over the mountains.  We thus exited the highway and plunged back up into the chalk hills, passing through the villages of Ora and Odou, and moving up into a brown-earthed landscape of scattered shrubs and occasional patches of pine, characterised by a change of colour in the local Agama Lizards, from coastal chalk grey, to rich ruddy brown. We found a shady pullout for lunch, opposite two modern mountain villas that appeared to be for rent. It was far from clear how you would spend your hours in such a place, perhaps sitting beneath a fan counting passing cars and Bee-eaters, or maybe padding around the garden watering the oregano and picking bits of roadside litter from the thorny branches of the bushes at the bottom of the yard. The road continued to climb even after we’d thought we must have reached the summit, and we even began to glance nervously at the fuel gauge, whose dramatic drop apparently had as much to do with the sharp gradient as the equally precarious situation regarding its contents. Finally the pass was reached and we plunged over the top, rather relieved, and dropped down like a rolling stone in the direction of the large city that began increasingly to dominate the distant horizon.

We were fairly pleased with our successful navigation around Lefkosia, only falling at the last hurdle as we drove around the university suburbs in decreasing concentric circles until we located Stamatis’ apartment block. We were warmly welcomed by Stamatis and his Ukranian partner Anna, and coolly welcomed by a massive floor fan and several glasses of iced water. We were soon immersed in a splendid banquet, Anita and Anna babbling away in Russian while Stamatis and I shed a few years of related gossip and life probing. Stamatis looked well, but as a Greek Greek he didn’t share too many kind words for his fellow Cypriots, whom he felt rather more materialistic and less open than those of his native land.

Lefkosia was undoubtedly the hottest place we visited in Cyprus, and it wasn’t until the streets themselves returned to shade that even the natives were willing to venture back out into them. We located the hotel that Stamatis had arranged for us to stay in and then walked from there to the centre of the old town. I did not have high expectations of Lefkosia, but was most pleasantly surprised by the pedestrianised streets fanning in from the old town wall, and the rather elegant architecture, giving the town centre an air of peace and dignity that belittled the reality of the Green Line that carved in into two.

For all this charm, there is no doubt however that it was the Lidras Street lookout that left by far the biggest impression on me. Lidras Street, a fairly unremarkable dark back street, came to a sudden end at a tall wooden platform next to a police checkpoint, where a rather jovial soldier paraded around brandishing a submachine gun. Above the platform an official banner proclaimed: “Nothing is gained without sacrifices and freedom without blood”. From the top of the platform we were able to look out over a dark abandoned alleyway, at what was once the continuation of Lidras Street, some 150 metres beyond which another wall blocked the street and a Turkish flag hung limply in the still evening air. The “no man’s land” between the outposts was very dark, with low lighting casting an eerie glow onto the branches of some tall kerbside trees. Deserted shop fronts lay abandoned and were gradually falling into ruination, yet it was easy to imagine scenes of 1974, people fleeing for their lives, leaving these buildings as we could see them now, buildings still standing expectant that their occupants were about to return. It was quite chilling.

The rest of the evening was very enjoyable, exploring the back streets of the Greek half of the city, sitting in a café drinking a beer and munching on dried chickpeas and lemon salted carrots. We left our friends and retired to the rather dilapidated Hotel Excelsior at about 11pm, easily falling asleep despite the grating of an ancient air-conditioning system.

Southeast

Our penultimate day in Cyprus was probably the least eventful. The morning was pleasantly spent wandering the streets of Lefkosia again, amazed by the number of “ethnic” shops that the city centre seemed to be able to support. It was a relatively short trip down the motorway back to Larnaka, where we hoped to find a camping site for our last two nights. This proved to be much more difficult than anticipated, since the location marked as a campsite on all our travel literature appeared to be largely abandoned. Despite the presence of around 100 permanent vans, there was no evidence of a proprietor and no running water in any of the toilet blocks. It was a sort of ghost campground, with darting shadows of people moving behind the lace curtains of some very immobile looking mobile homes, and a flock of Night Herons croaking from the treetops. The owners of the small shop next door seemed surprised that we should find the camping facilities in such a state, but shook their heads solemnly when discussing the owners and suggested that we pitched camp and came and took showers in the morning in their house. This was all very kind, but not really convenient and so we decided to try Agia Napa, party town.

Agia Napa was not on our list of intended destinations, but the same reliable camping literature declared it also to have camping, and its closeness to Cape Greco made it seem a sensible base for our last day of exploration. After following the 30 kilometres of brand new motorway that deposited us on the Agia Napia holiday hotel boulevard, we had little trouble locating the camping ground, whose entrance had been blocked off and whose camping arena appeared to be returning to a rather pleasing (but almost certainly temporary) wilderness state. I fear by the time you read this it will be yet another ten storey hotel or perhaps an extension of the nearby aquatic park. We parked by the sea in a dusty lay-by and struggled to make up our sandwiches in the burling clouds of sand that were being whipped up by a ferocious onshore breeze. The tent had surely had its last outing and we had the choice of a hotel in Agia Napa or trying to find something back in Larnaka. That wasn’t a choice at all.

We easily found a small apartment to rent for the night in Larnaka, although it did require a room switch before we had one that did not have dirty dishes all over the kitchen and a girl’s nightdress abandoned on the unmade bed.  The promenade west of the city that led to a small fishing harbour made a very pleasant afternoon stroll, and we sat and had a couple of beers on the terrace of an old café whose walls were adorned by extraordinary paintings of naked women, while Yellow-legged Gulls and a couple of Marsh Harriers flapped lazily out to sea. 

Our last breakfast on Cyprus was taken sitting on the tiny balcony of our apartment, providing an excellent view of the building site to the rear and of scooters zipping up and down the street beneath us. I managed to procure some excellent pastries from a dumb (literally) baker, communicating with one another using a series of overly extravagant grunts and gesticulations. We checked out and set off on our last day of exploration.

Northeast of Larnaka the administrative border closes in on “Greek Cyprus”, cutting diagonally to the southeast and leaving Agia Napa and Cape Greco as the southeastern tip. The border itself cuts through the village of Akhna, now an abandoned shell of a settlement on the Turkish side, apparently only occasionally occupied by Turkish troops. Even the United Nations watch point looked abandoned, as we followed a narrow road beyond Akhna down to the shores of a reservoir that had been recommended as a birding hotspot. The water levels were fairly low, but the dense reeds at the side of the reservoir looked very promising, and indeed this was one of the few birding locations that we visited on Cyprus that really lived up to its promised expectations. Grey Herons stalked the margins and White-winged Black Terns hawked above the surface. A small flock of Spur-winged Plovers flitted across the reservoir, while Yellow Wagtails, Little-Ringed Plovers and Squacco Herons busied themselves along the shoreline. A Hoopoe strutted through the short grass on the far shore, Snipe erupted from the reeds and a passing Osprey held position in the strong breeze while eyeing the lake for suitable prey.

Apart from a cluster of fishermen, sweltering by an exposed bank, there was no sign of other human life except for a series of incredibly misplaced viewing hides that had been erected high above the reservoir, a long distance from the edge of the lake. The whole purpose of these hides had been somewhat negated, not just by their inappropriate distance from the lake, but also by some park benches that had been subtly positioned directly in front of them, as well as by a vehicular track that ran beneath them to the edge of the reservoir. As we were departing a car rolled up, driven by a Turkish chap from Chiswick. He had apparently just leased some of the land on this side of the reservoir and was in the process of doing some very strange things on it, none of which seemed likely to enhance the conservation value of Akhna Reservoir. These included establishing a petting zoo (already present in the form of a cage of Guinea Fowl and Quail), a kiosk, pony rides and goodness knows what else. He keenly showed us some photos that his brother-in-law had taken of White Storks on the lake.  We sincerely hope that his good intentions for the lakeside are held in check by someone who knows a little bit more about how best to manage wetlands, otherwise I fear that this very excellent little spot might be put under some needless pressure.

The town square in nearby Paralimni was a perfectly reasonable place to while away the hottest hour of the day, watching yet another busload of Russians struggle in the heat to decide in which taverna to take their lunch. Even the walk to the supermarket to make a last Cyprus stock take was an exercise in stepping from one shade cloth to another, ducking the heat that the whitewashed walls reflected and radiated around the town. Paralimni was the last place of charm on a depressing drive down to the southeast tip of Cape Greco, where we passed through several small towns consumed by tourist dollars, neon restaurant signs and towering apartment blocks. Our air-conditioning was set to full blast as we entered the thick juniper scrub surrounding Cape Greco. The tip of the cape itself was out of bounds, occupied by various military installations, but the surrounding headland was a pleasant escape from the developments inland. A narrow road wound its way around a series of parking bays, and narrow trails edged around the tops of sculpted cliffs.  We found a sheltered hollow in a cleft between the cliffs and perched on raspingly coarse rocks for an hour or so, admiring the extraordinary natural carvings and enjoying the cool breeze that blew in from the turquoise sea.

Once the bite was gone from the sun, we followed a trail around the bluff and looked out over the surrounding water, glimpsing the mountains of Syria in the far distance. A Blue Rock Thrush sang from high above our heads and scores of tiny Willow and Spectacled Warblers jumped in the straggles of low bushes along the steeper slopes of the bluff. Our last Cyprus sun adjusted its position and started to sink beyond the low limestone pavement that reached out towards the high rises of Agia Napa. We returned to the car, disturbing record numbers of Chukars, and made a final pack of the rental car and of our bags. A lone wheatear piped up from the top of a juniper bush and Cyprus faded from daylight view.

Our attempts at having a last swim and shower developed into something rather farcical because it seemed that few of the public beaches in this corner of Cyprus had outdoor showers. We made several unsuccessful attempts before ending up back on the Larnaka seafront, only to miss closure of the public showers by a few minutes. The rather eccentric attendant however supplied us with bottles of fresh water from the toilets that we could briefly rinse off from. This amusing episode was accompanied by a long and sorry story about how in his youth he had had the erotic adventure of a lifetime on the beach with two Scottish girls, one of whom had sat in his lap and left him recovering ever since. Before any more of the details were revealed we bade him a kind goodnight and went off in search of some late supper at one of the busy harbour side tavernas. The day had been long enough.

Outbound

Our flight required an 02.30 check-in, leaving the unattractive options of paying for a room in a hotel for three hours sleep, bedding down in the crowded airport, or maximising use of the car. We opted for the latter and looked for a spot to park close to the airport. Turning up the western shore of the dry Larnaka salt lake, Cyprus held one last surprise. In a large shallow pool opposite the airport itself, a flock of about 800 Greater Flamingos were feeding close to the edge of the road. We pulled into a large lay-by and watched them sweeping back and forth in ghostly waves across the water, surreally backlit by the floodlights of the airport cargo terminal and the neon streetlights of the highway behind us. Each flamingo was quietly grunting, a noise that when amplified to a flock of 800 resulted in a peculiarly wild echo for such an urban place. After a few hours dozing in the car this noise was easily audible from the airport car park as we unloaded our stuff and trekked into the busy terminal, which itself was an amazing hive of activity at such a delicate hour of the morning.

The London plane was packed with returning students, businessmen heading for 09.00 appointments, and a few bleary eyed holidaymakers. I dropped off almost immediately and was soon lost in the clouds, flamingos honking in my head. We’d enjoyed Cyprus very much without really falling in love. To be fair we’d only seen one “half”, the other a very different experience by all accounts. But Cyprus is an amazing mix, a cultural confusion, something a little bit different, without in certain aspects being different at all; a good place to eat a mousaka, meet a moufflon, swim on a deserted beach, lose yourself in a warm sky of northern stars, catch the southern bird migration, drink a dram of orange liqueur and sleep with some flamingos.