Cyprus E4: Stavros tis Psokas to near the Kykkos monastery: Day 9

A day in a remote part of the Troodos range among steep sided, wooded mountains visiting a fire watch tower and "Cedar Valley".
After decamping I was delighted to find the cafe open at 7:30 a.m., serving forestry workers cups of coffee before they started their shift at 8:00 a.m.. A strong Cypriot coffee (which is the same as a Greek, Turkish or Arabic coffee) is a good way to start the day. Further good news was that, after a short distance of tarmac, the E4 followed a proper footpath, part of a nature trail with informative signs. It was also steeply uphill. 

Although the path was through sizeable pine trees, there were smaller trees in the "under canopy". One of the helpful signs described these as oak trees, called Golden Oak ("Quercus Alnifolia"). The oval leaves were not like the oaks I was familiar with, they had distinctive "golden" undersides. Looking closely I could see there were indeed a few thin acorns. It is the national tree of Cyprus. At bush level there were various aromatic herbs. The cafe was selling wild oregano, no doubt from among these trees.
At the top of the (first) hill it was back to a gravel track. As was the case yesterday, the road took a circuitous route, in and out of the mountainside to maintain altitude or doubling back on itself to gain or lose height on these steep slopes. In due course I reached the summit of Tripylos, on which a fire watch tower stands. The forestry officer on duty let me climb up the stubby tower to see the 360 degree view and pointed to various sights including places I had been and ones I was to visit in the next few days, including the Kykkos monastery and Mount Olympus. I hoped to camp near the monastery tonight, but although not far away if reached in a straight line, the E4 takes a much longer and roundabout route.
"Cedar Valley" starts at the Tripylos summit, it is an area with a large numbers of Cyprus Cedars. Not as elegant as the Cedars of Lebanon, they are a protected species, present at only a few places on Cyprus. Walking down the valley to the tarmac road I met a number of people walking up, some looked red and struggling with the heat and had possibly unwisely exposed too much skin.
The tarmac led me to another track, closed to vehicles. It looked like it had been ploughed up to make it unusable to wheeled transport but the uneven surface also made it hard for walkers. In addition the track was taking me away from my destination rather than towards it, a typical trick played by those who created the route of the E4 in Cyprus. Eventually it joined a dirt track used by vehicles (of which I saw only one, an old Volvo on a family outing), that headed in the direction of the Kykkos monastery. However, as I walked back and fore on the numerous loops in the road it was evident that I was not going to get close to the monastery before nightfall. I started to look for places to camp, not easy with the very steep slopes restricting me to the road. I finally chose an abandoned track, where I pitched my tent on very stony ground among sage bushes growing on the old track. The sky was still pink on the horizon as I ate some diner.

33 kilometres walked today with a 1080 metre total ascent. A gps file of my walk can be downloaded from wikiloc.com or ViewRanger under short code johnpon0045.

Pine trees on the steep slopes of the Troodos mountains

A Cyprus Cedar

View towrds Mount Olympus from the Fire Watch tower

Cyprus E4: Lysos to Stavros tis Psokas: Day 8

A climb over a hill through what remains of the village of Melandra, followed by a long hike in the forests of the Troodos mountains to the campsite at Stavros tis Psokas.
Clanging bells from the nearby church woke me early this Sunday morning. In the clear morning light I stopped at one of the cafes for a "Cyprus coffee" and a cheese and ham toastie for breakfast, sitting among older men from the village, and watching a flock of pigeons wheel across the blue sky. Sitting high in the hills, the countryside spread before me, the sky and sea seemed to merge together on the horizon.
I stood outside the open door of the church, smelling the incense and listening to the liturgy being chanted, giving a sense of timeless peace, even if I understood none of it. People walked in and out of the church. The lady who served me breakfast this morning, smiled in recognition as she entered the church. A bored looking boy sat outside playing with his ball. The pigeons pecked at the water in an ornamental pool below the church.
My day's walk began with a dusty climb out of the village by fields of stubble set among scrub. Melandra was a village abandoned by Turkish Cypriots following conflicts with Greek Cypriots and the 1974 invasion of the north of Cyprus by Turkish forces. It consisted of a small number of buildings in various states of ruin, possibly as a result of shelling. Not completely deserted as buildings were being used for bales of hay, chickens and the like. There were also various indications of the Greek Cypriot fight against the British in the 1950's, when Cyprus was part of the remnants of the British empire. Signs pointed to EOKA hideouts (the organisation which battled against the British), there was a memorial of some kind (I could not read the Greek but the date corresponded to the independence struggle) and Greek flags still fly in Cypriot villages.
Dropping down into a valley I joined a tarmac road. An E4 sign pointed to the track I had walked along but someone had scrawled on it "wrong", whereas I am sure it was correct. A jogger passed me in one direction, two cyclists overtook me, then the jogger returned heading back to where she came from. Otherwise there was no traffic on the road.
I turned off into the extensive pine forest that I was expecting to walk through for several days, following the E4 along a gravel road. For the first part of the route the road contoured around the mountains, cut into the steep slopes exposing the rock just beneath the surface. The road made great loops as it went in and out of each valley and ravine in order to maintain the same height, so I could walk for half an hour or so and still see the same trees but from a different direction. In a few of the little valleys I crossed wells had been drilled to extract water.
Unlike earlier in my trip the roads were no longer white, the white limestone had been replaced by greenish gray or reddish brown rocks giving the road a similar colour. They seemed to be igneous rocks, formed by cooling magma. Occasionally there was evidence of lava flows: pillows of rock formed by underwater volcanic eruptions; or vesicles, little bubbles now full of crystals. Elsewhere the rock would have been formed by magma intruding into older rock and solidifying underground. From some distant lecture I recalled it was part of the ocean floor that was pushed up into the mountains by the collision of Africa into Europe and Asia, the continents slowly moving towards each other over millions of years.
Eventually the route turned to climb up a narrow valley beside a stream and meandered rather less, an old vehicle track, in places it was washed away and I walked up the stream itself, brambles tried to grab me from each side. The pines were tall here, not like the stunted trees I had seen on the Akamas peninsula. In the valley there were many types of tree giving a cooling green canopy against the sun.
At length I reached Stavros tis Psokas and its campground, after an attempted conversation with one of the Forestry Officers (who spoke no English) I pitched my tent on one of the terraces among the trees. A little cafe was open and I was glad of a coke and my second toastie of the day. Later, as twilight approached, I also enjoyed a beer. In between I looked around the mouflon enclosure. These wild sheep inhabit the Troodos mountains but are rarely seen so I wanted to know what they looked like. They were not woolly like sheep, the coat was more like a deer's. The rams had big curly horns and a dark brown underbelly and neck stripe.
It was a popular area. Some teenagers were using the road for skate boarding, and there were some people having picnics. As they were packing up to leave, one of them gave me pizza they had not needed. That was my supper for the night! After the visitors had left I was alone at the campsite. The only sounds as I prepared for sleep were some flesh covered nuts dropping to the ground and the trickle of a nearby stream.

25 kilometres walked today with an ascent of 670 metres. A gps file of my walk can be downloaded from wikiloc.com or ViewRanger under short code johnpon0045.

Ruined house at Melandra

Gravel road into the Troodos mountains

Cyprus E4: Droushia to Lysos: Day 7

My first day heading east, crossing lower land separating the mountains of the Akamas peninsula from the foothills of the Troodos.
Droushia, the village I stayed in last night, is in the hills, 640 metres above sea level. When I woke my hotel was enveloped in cloud, the view down from the hotel pool to the distant sea hidden, until the rising sun burnt away the mist. Farm tracks took me down the hillside, switching back and fore between fields of stubble, leading to, but not entering, the next village of Kitou Tera. After Kitou Tera, for most of the day the E4 followed tarmac roads. Easy walking as there was very little traffic, less than I experienced in the more "remote" Akamas peninsula, mainly because today I was in an area little visited by tourists, although the villages try to attract them with little museums of village life. I visited one at Steni which was full of things villages used to use: looms; bread proving trays; dog tags, and the like.
The road took a serpentine route, twisting its way down to the river, the lowest point (in terms of altitude) of my day, much of the rest was uphill. I was mainly passing fields of dry stubble, an exception was an area of bright green beans, their colour achieved by irrigation using thin black pipes. The E4 seems to bypass the centre of most villages, a mistake as the old villages are one of the attractions of the route. I diverted into the centre of Goudi for a morning coffee, fascinated by the expressive hands of the people in conversation on the adjacent table. Later I left the E4 to have lunch (a pitta toastie) at a cafe in Steni.
Between Steni and Lysos, the village where I am staying the night, I found no GPS track in my research, so created one based on maps and Google Earth that seemed to match that in the E4 Cyprus pamphlet. Fortunately it was a viable route with no obstructions and, from occasional E4 signs, also seemed the correct one. The only downside was a steep uphill climb at the end of the day to reach Lysos. Today I was seeing signposts marked "Pafos 31 kilometres", a day's hike, so it was a bit depressing that I had taken 6 days to reach this point, a result of the meandering nature of the E4. So I was pleased that today at least I was heading east in the direction of my destination.
Tonight I am at the Marmaras apartments where my room has a terrace with a grand view and my evening meal is just a short walk away.

24 kilometres walked today with a 680 metre total ascent. A gps file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, and on myViewRanger under short code johnpon0044.

Typical field of stubble by the roadside dotted with ocasional trees

Cyprus E4: Bath of Aphrodite to Droushia: Day 6

Whereas yesterday I walked around the coast of the Akamas peninsula, today the E4 took me on a circuitous route through its mountains.
The walk started well, although it began with a steep uphill climb, it was on a footpath through juniper and small trees rather than on a vehicle track, part of a local nature trail the E4 followed for a while. There were benches and signs naming different plants. Sadly I could not see plants such as Cistus, that were named on the signs as these grow and flower in spring. Probably, the best time to enjoy walking in Cyprus is in the spring when I imagine flowers are abundant. In September most vegetation looks sun bleached and drab, or dead, but the grass must have been greener earlier in the year. After following a pipe up a narrow valley with outcrops of rock, I reached the higher ground and it was back to following dusty vehicle tracks.
Nevertheless they took me among pine trees, and although there were some noisy All Terain Vehicles and the like with tourists circling the roads, for most of the time it made for pleasant walking. I could see down to where I walked yesterday, the coast and the sea beyond, sometimes turquoise near the coast and a much deeper indigo blue further out. The route initially headed north and then turned back on itself, maybe to give views of both the north and west sides of the peninsula. I climbed up to a fire watch tower, sat on a summit and ate a snack on the rocks while admiring the view. The pines were of no great height, they spread out laterally, some stunted and contorted, the gaps between the trees were too great to call it a true forest. Possibly the result of lack of rainfall and the thin soil with the rocks protruding through.
Later I left the pines and walked through scrub with thorny bushes. It was brown and burnt by the sun. The only relief were some tall spikes of white flowers. Further on there were terraced fields on which wheat or some similar crop had been grown, now there was just stubble. As I approached Doushia, a village high in the hills, vineyards added rows of bright green. Some were well tended, others abandoned. In places large bodies of rock formed minor summits.
Entry into the village was somewhat impeded by road works and I reached Hotel Palates by a circuitous route. I have now just finished an excellent dish of stiffado, the beef so tender it fell apart, the cinnamon flavouring just right.

25 kilometres walked today, with a healthy 950 metre total ascent. A gps file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, and on myViewRanger under short code johnpon0044.

Route taken by the footpath from the Bath of Aphrodite

View back down the north coast of the Akamas peninsula

The gravel track across the top of the peninsula

One of the few flowers out at this time of year

Cyprus E4: Lara Beach to Bath of Aphrodite: Day 5

A long day walking on gravel roads around the Akamas peninsula.
6:30 am and I was up and watching the colours on the cliffs opposite and in the clouds. It had rained during the night and the black rain clouds, tinged orange by the distant sun were still a forbidding presence. I had been tossing in the sweaty heat last night, all but naked on top of my sleeping bag so I was glad of the rain which cooled the air and allowed me to drift into a peaceful slumbers.
As I munched on a biscuit for breakfast, sandflies were trying to bite my legs, so pretty as the beach was, I was keen to be on my way. After my experience yesterday, I was expecting to be troubled by passing vehicles, but only a police car, two white pickups and two cyclists passed me until I reached the north coast in the afternoon. Nevertheless, the E4 follows the dirt road, initially two lanes wide and later single track, for some 30 kilometres. It does not give the feel of being among remote nature, even though there were no buildings in sight between Lara Bay and the Bath of Aphrodite.
Signs drew attention to the rare coastal juniper bushes which clothe the peninsula. As they are rare their habitat is protected by an EU directive and I have seen several examples where my walk across Europe has touched the sea. The Junipers beside the road are coated with dust raised by passing vehicles, I cannot imagine it does them much good, it is certainly unattractive. There are also pine trees, goats (including pretty brown ones and ones with long beards) and lizards on the peninsula, and birds that flapped into flight like small grouse at my approach.
The fine white dust on the road was from the limestone, which outcrops as cliffs and hills or forms the shoreline, where it can be corroded by water into fantastical shapes with sharp edges. In places, older darker serpentine rock shows through. You can see lovely green colours and veining if you wet it.
The E4 drops down to the north coast of the peninsula at Fontana Amoroza, a bay with exceedingly blue water. Land Rovers were providing a regular run transporting people there from the Bath of Aphrodite, and others were arriving by boat. Some people were trying to make the trip in their rental cars, very slowly, but the dips and bumps in the road and the soft dust makes this look unwise, especially as a section of the single track road has a very steep drop on one side.
Although you were not allowed to bath in the Bath of Aphrodite it was a pleasant spot and the area around it had informative signs giving the names for different local trees and bushes. There was also a stall selling ice cream and coke outside, which I felt obliged to patronise.
A little further down the road I reached the Aphrodite beach hotel. Finding the entrance proved a little difficuly, mislead by the signs, and I entered via the back past the washing. After checking in I went down to the beach for a swim. I thought compared with some on the beach I looked quite fit, sadly I spoilt the impression of masculinity by teetering into the sea, my bare feet very sensitive to the pebbles, it probably looked like I was doing an impression of walking over a bed of nails...

31 kilometres walked today and a 520 metre total ascent. A gps file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, and on myViewRanger under short code johnpon0044.

My tent on Lara baech

The E4 around the Akamas Peninsula

A goat checks me out

Fontana Amoroza or the Blue Lagoon

Cyprus E4: Killi to Lara Bay: Day 4

A day of variety, first I walked through scrub, sharing the track with tourists driving motorised buggies, then I visited the town of Peyeia, followed by a pine forest and banana plantations, and finally a walk along the coast to Lara Bay.
After a breakfast of many different things at the Perrgell B&B, including fresh figs grown in the very garden in which I was sitting, I left Killi and followed dusty, white roads down to Adonis' bath and waterfall. I did not visit the place as there were suggestions on the internet that it was an expensive tourist trap. Instead I continued up the hill, out of the valley meeting convoys of tourists on motorised buggies or All Terrain Vehicles, leaving a trail of white dust in their wake. To avoid breathing it in I pulled up my bright yellow "Buff", which I had been wearing to protect my neck from sun burn, so that it covered my mouth and nose. In conjunction with my sun hat and dark glasses I must have looked like a demented, latter day cowboy.
Fly tipped rubbish beside the dirt track indicated I was getting close to another major urban centre. After climbing over another ridge, crossing the top of a narrow ravine in the process, I arrived at Peyeia. The E4 does not go through the centre of town, taking a circuitous route through the suburbs, in part to avoid a deep valley, but needing provisions I diverted to where a shop, some bars and cafes clustered around a church, all on a steep slope. Stopping at a bar for a Fanta, banging into the narrow doors with my rucksack, I sat down surrounded by British tourists enjoying tall, cold lagers in the midday heat.
It was a steep climb out of town, with the reward of a view down the coast back towards Pafos. Coming down the other side of the hill I walked through a pine forest, this year's pine needles were a vivid green, a sharp contrast with the dusty, grey green of most of the trees I had passed. Seeing a stork wandering around in a fenced area I was somewhat perplexed, until I realised it was a Zoo. Soon after I reached the coastal plain and banana plantations lined the road. Most of the banana bunches were encased in blue plastic, no doubt for some good reason. Leaving the E4 in search of food, I had a late, and very tasty lunch at the Sunset Cafe, distracted slightly by the cafes family members shouting at each other.
The Akamas peninsula is supposedly a remote and undeveloped area, while it is indeed undeveloped the frequent passage of cars and motorised buggies made it feel far from remote, although I guess it was just people like myself enjoying a holiday, although without wanting to walk. The cars all seemed to have red number plates, which I took to mean they were hire cars, certainly they were driving slowly, no doubt to avoid the cost implications of a scratch or a cracked windscreen on these gravel roads. I walked through scrubby vegetation with the occasional field of stubble or herd of goats. Just as I was thinking that unlike Crete (my previous excursion on the E4) Cyprus did not seem to have many gorges, I reached the entrance to the Avakas gorge. The number of cars parked suggested it was a popular walk up the gorge, however the E4 does not go in that direction, so I headed on up the Akamas peninsula as the shadows were beginning to lengthen.
Camping is prohibited on the peninsula, but there is no accommodation, the nearest hotel was full and it is a 14 hour walk, difficult to achieve in one day. Despite the prohibition I was planning to camp due to the lack of an alternative, and as I was walking up the road with a big rucksack my intentions were pretty clear. As the afternoon drew to a close a police car slowly drove passed me and there was a fire engine on the roadside, its crew sitting around a table speaking among themselves. Fortunately at about that time I saw a sign to a snack bar on Lara beach, the second sign for a cafe but the first to offer free camping. Consequently, I am now camped outside the snack bar. It was closing as I arrived but I thought the least I could do was buy a beer given that the owner had allowed me to camp there.
Turtles nest on the beach and before the light completely faded I had a look. Nests were marked with little frameworks and signs, put there so they were not accidentally dug up by children making sandcastles...

32 kilometres walked today including diversions for shops and lunch, and a 700 metre total ascent. A gps file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, and on myViewRanger under short code johnpon0044.

The town on Peyeia

View back down the coast from the track the E4 was following

Cyprus E4: Episkopi to Killi: Day 3

Today's scenery was much improved on yesterday's, now that I was away from major urban centres and instead visiting small villages and passing vineyards.
The House of Sophia's where I stayed last night was notable in that the owners had restored an old house, others in the village looked less cared for. The next village, Moro Nero, had long been abandoned with only a old church and some remnants of walls left. Some areas were still cultivated, a dog barked from one of them.
My day's walk began by following the side of the valley past a few goats, olive groves and scrub. The regular lines of vineyards were visible in the distance. A steep climb followed as I left the valley and its farmed areas behind. Looking down at me from the summit a new house was under construction and beyond were many more, mostly completed and inhabited. Modern luxury affairs, concrete cubes with big windows framing a view across the valley to distant mountains, their carefully planted gardens contrasted with the surrounding scrub. Beautiful though they were the area appeared to have no history, no little kafenio with old men drinking coffee, no church I could see or village square. I was somewhat wrong as apparently there is an ancient monastery somewhere within the development area. A large golf course seemed the heart of the community. Unlike the dried up, rough, straw coloured vegetation which covered uncultivated ground elsewhere, the golf course was green, neatly trimmed and clearly watered regularly.
With the world getter warmer, the hottest global temperatures ever recorded occurring in the last two decades, I wondered how Cyprus was going to manage. The shrivelled leaves on some of the trees, many of which had lost their leaves suggested that the weather was not generous with its water at present and I wondered if water would become a problem. New building and its associated golf courses will only add to pressure on available supplies, although apparently the development I was walking through has its own reservoir and a system for reusing "grey water". I had seen signs promising permanent EU residency if you invested in property, no doubt this encouraged additional building.
I continued on to the reassuringly old village of Tsada, diverting briefly from the E4 to climb up to the village centre. By the church three flags were flying, that of Cyprus, the double headed eagle of the Greek Orthodox church and the Greek flag. Was the latter flying due to a continued wish to become part of Greece, an old theme in Cypriot politics?
Shortly after Tsada I had a salad with grilled halloumi cheese (a Cypriot speciality) at a microbrewery. I felt envious as fellow customers enjoyed a tasting menu of six different beers, but I knew if I did the same I would struggle to reach my destination for the night under the hot sun, so for me it was a Fanta.
White, dusty tracks reflected the harsh sunlight as they led me around the hills on a circuitous tour of vineyards planted on terraces, surrounded by areas of scrub and low trees. A lot of white soil was visible between the vines giving them a sparse look.
I arrived at the Perrgell Bed & Breakfast in the village of Killi early, having made fast progress despite the number of hills I had climbed today. My three course dinner there, among the trees in the courtyard, included as a desert of quince in a sweet syrup, sourced in the village, not something I have eaten before...

My first full day of walking I covered 20 kilometres with an total ascent of 800 metres. A gps file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, and on myViewRanger under short code johnpon0044.

The valley I had been following since Pafos, here with vineyards at the on the valley floor, dry pasture above and then scrub on the mountainside 

Modern and expensive houses at the crest of the hill

Vineyards on terraces on the hillside

Cyprus E4: Pafos to Episkopi: Day 2

Today I viewed mosaics in the morning and walked up a valley in the afternoon.
The road to the harbour of Kato Pafos was lined with tourist hotels and resorts, along with souvenir shops, small supermarkets, agents for various tours, cafes and restaurants all serving the tourist trade. As the coast was not that beautiful I did not feel it spoilt by the development and the visitors seemed to be enjoying themselves (frequently with a pint of beer). Yet Pafos was not merely a holiday resort, it also has a great deal of history, others, long ago, had enjoyed living here.
Despite exploring a significant length of fencing surrounding the Archeological park I failed to find the entrance, so I visited St Paul's pillar, on which the apostle was said to have been whipped 39 times. It stands by the remains of a number of ancient churches that you can view from raised walkways. In addition there was a map, better than that given to me (free) by the hotel, which showed the entrance of the Archeological park was by the picturesque castle at the mouth of the harbour.
Within the park there were a lot of mosaics from Roman times displaying competitions among the gods, geometric designs and animals. Helpfully, the mosaics also included the names of the gods depicted in Greek script. Some were of great quality, the colours and shading giving a 3 dimensional impression that reminded me of the artist Cezanne. There were also the ruined walls typical of ancient remains and an intact amphitheatre.
I left at midday to return to the point at which the E4 heads inland. From here it followed a stream almost all the way to the village of Episkopi. No stream was visible at first, its location possibly hidden among bamboo. This first part of the route was not attractive, rubbish, some smelly, had been fly tipped, and apart from the bamboo the vegetation was dry, yellow and dusty. Even olive trees in adjacent fields looked drab.
Leaving the coastal plain the route entered a valley, cliffs of dipping rock surrounded by straw coloured grasses. Industrial buildings marked the top of the valley sides. Beside the track, a raised concrete channel carried water down the valley, covered with corrugated iron, presumably to stop the water evaporating in the heat. After passing under a tall motorway bridge, high above me, the scenery improved somewhat, no rubbish and fewer buildings. There were signs saying "danger" and "no swimming" although I could see nothing to swim in. A bulldozer was making rectangular depressions at one point, maybe there were others filled with water elsewhere, but hidden by bamboo?
I had been following tracks used by vehicles but a one point my GPS led me into the stream. I made one attempt at avoiding it but prickly pear and bamboo prevented progress, and I was aware that poisonous snakes do live in Cyprus. So I took off my hiking shoes and socks, and put on my sandals and waded up the stream for a few hundred metres. Frogs jumped out of my way, a bird hopped along ahead of me, I was happy walking on the stones in the stream but disliked it when mud oozed between my toes in an unpleasant manner. Keeping my sandals on as the track periodically crossed the the stream, I made the mistake of not changing back into my shoes as I left the stream and climbed up the hill to Episkopi. A large, painful thorn stuck itself into a toe exposed by my sandals.
Episkopi looks an attractive place, it sits in the shadow of a big rock. Also attractive is my room for the night at the House of Sophia's Bed & Breakfast, where I was welcomed by Liz.

A gps file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, and on myViewRanger under short code johnpon0044.

Mosaic at Pafos Archeological park

Route up the valley to Episkopi, water is travelling down channel on left

Cyprus E4: Airport to Pafos: Day 1

Leaving for a trip is a stressful experience.  Firstly because it means leaving my wife for a few weeks. We say our goodbyes, I promise to be safe, look out for traffic on roads and not fall off any cliffs, I tell the dog to look after her, the dog looks at me with big brown eyes but I don't think she takes it in.

Secondly, one worries if all the travel arrangements will work out. Will the coach to the airport get stuck on the M25 due to some traffic accident? Will the airline loose my rucksack or will it be destroyed, mangled between conveyor belts? Sometimes I am told to send the rucksack through the normal system, at other times I am told to take it to the oversized luggage portal, which is correct? Will my sister think I am destroying the planet with the carbon dioxide released by my flying?
Then there are all the people crowding around me, filling the coach and plane, or waiting for flights in the departure area within a mall of shops selling very expensive watches and sunglasses no-one seems to buy (they must rely on an enormous mark up on those rare items they do sell). Having followed orders at security, I walk along the narrow winding path between towers of duty free perfumes, politely shuffling behind slow elderly couples, trying to avoid people offering samples of perfume (which I don't use), while in search for a coffee at somewhere without a long queue.
Finally there is the worry that I have forgotten something, or left it behind on some seat, so regular checks on my passport persist for a few days into my trip until I neglect to obsess about it.
In reality it all happened more or less as planned. The coach arrived a tolerable 10 minutes late at Gatwick, and thankfully my rucksack arrived on the baggage reclaim belt in Pafos (also spelt Paphos), undamaged, although among the last bags to come through so that I was starting to fret about where I put the baggage receipt, no doubt needed if my baggage was lost.
As I flew into Pafos airport, the land looked dry and dusty. Steep sided valleys and ravines had cut into the soft, poorly vegetated soils. On flatter ground there were squares of stubble and orchards of some kind. Lines of villas followed, each with a bright blue swimming pool filling its backyard.
Once on the ground I walked out of the airport and prepared for my walk into Pafos, putting on sunscreen, my sun hat, and switching on my GPS in front of a couple of policeman with machine guns. Then a walk out of the airport on the road and a right hand turn into a forestry area. People were barbecuing food at a picnic area among eucalyptus trees with dry brown leaves. As I walked along the shoreline, doubling back in the direction of the airport all the vegetation looked crisp and burnt by the summer sun. No doubt in spring it would have been full of flowers. In the afternoon heat I walked along the narrow strip between the sea and airport perimeter fence, sometimes on a vehicle track, sometimes on the sand and shingle of the beach, my feet sinking in at every step, sometimes pushing through thorny undergrowth near the fence. I only took this route after finding someone on wikiloc.com who had walked it. Leaving the airport behind the path was indistinct in places and being eroded by the sea in others.
Close to the outer perimeter of tourist developments around Pafos, I left the E4 and walked past people sunbathing on the beach, and later on well watered, green grass lawns in front of hotels and resorts, the bright green sharply contrasting with the brown of the natural vegetation. Those enjoying the sun were maybe showing more naked flesh than was wise in the sun or attractive.
Reaching the Pandream hotel, hot and sweating I ordered a cold beer. I guess as a result of British influence a pint was the main offering. Probably more than I should have drunk as my subsequent attempt at swimming in the hotel pool resulted me in veering to one side or another.
The restaurant suggested by the hotel offered such British staples as cod and chips. As I had just flown many miles to leave Britain I climbed up to a restaurant claiming to be French and enjoyed a pretty decent meal, even the cabbage tasting good! Although the waiters said "thank you very much" far more often than any French waiter would...

A gps file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, and on myViewRanger under short code johnpon0044.

The coast near the airport