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.
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.
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| Ruined house at Melandra |
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| Gravel road into the Troodos mountains |
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