With a good sleep under our belt and feeling a little more optimistic about driving after our trial run on Saturday, we decided to venture southwest of Limassol and visit the Kourion castle as well as the archaeological ruins. The castle was lovely, situated in the middle of a vast vineyard, and surrounded by flowers. We spent some time snapping pictures and then ran into a group of about 30 young women from the Philippines who were also on tour. Nabil offered to take their picture and that started a picture taking frenzy ...they wanted a picture with Nabil as a group, in singles, twosomes and threesomes. They wanted pictures with me, then with us, then with each other. They giggled and screamed and traded cameras and thanked us profusely and then disappeared onto their bus! That's the beauty of traveling...the crazy unexpected encounters with people who you would never imagine meeting.
We stopped for a Turkish coffee...thick, dense coffee served in small cups sweetened to taste, and served with a separate glass of water. Its become an acquired taste with a caffeine kick! We sat there taking in the fresh air scented with ripening grapes, watching the proprietor and her husband tend their storefront. We tried to imagine living such a simple life. Couldn't get there. And then we pushed on....
The Kourion ruins were perched on a spectacular hilltop that overlooked the Mediterranean, making it one of the most spectacular sites we have ever visited. Much of the city had been excavated and the remains of the plumbing, thermal baths, ceramic flooring and other minutiae of daily life were incredibly well preserved. The well preserved amphitheater was abuzz with preparations for a heavy metal concert which was scheduled for that evening, and their wild lyrics echoed off the mountain as they tested the sound equipment. Recycling the architecture of the ages! The brutal heat seared the visual memory into our brains.
Desperate to cool off we headed down the hill to the beach and chowed down on freshly grilled fish while the blue sea crashed on the rocky beach. This side of the island was much prettier, with limestone cliffs plunging into a sea of swirling blues and greens. Refreshed, we headed to the temple of Apollo several miles away, stopping briefly at the site of an ancient sports stadium. The entire complex from Kourion to the Apollo site had once been a contiguous ancient metropolis, sitting on the crest of a mountain. It was awe inspiring. But hot, hot, hot. So we decided to drive into the mountains to the village of Omodos, recommended as quaint, with good shopping and traditional architecture. At least 10 degrees cooler and much less humid, it was a welcome respite from the broiling heat of the coast.
We navigated with ease, stopping along the way to enjoy the views and then meandered through the town, buying some treats from the local bakery to enjoy with our cappuccino. At the recommendation of our hotel clerk, we took a detour deeper into the mountains, clinging to the curving switchbacks that hugged the edge of the cliffs, looking for the first of a series of Venetian bridges buried in the mountain forests. When we finally came upon the first of these simple stone bridges, it looked like we had stumbled onto a movie set, where forest gnomes might be gathered at the stream and under the bridge. Six hundred years ago, soldiers had carved this trail and series of bridges to cart supplies through this difficult landscape. We soaked our feet in the stream and braced for the return trip, stopping first at Aphrodite's temple before driving back to our hotel, and having dinner in Larnaca.
Our last day was spent touring Larnaca in the morning, and then we headed east to Agia Napa, a newly developed beach resort that pulsed with young university students and families enjoying the white sand beaches, crystal clear coves and typical beach attractions. We soaked in the sea water and dozed in the sun on rented chaise lounges. On our return, we dined across from the hotel and spent nearly an hour chatting with the owner about the explosion of Russian tourists on Cyprus and the shifting global economy. He had spent 40 years in the hospitality business cultivating the Russian market for Cyprus hotels before starting his business. His brother was a restaurant owner in Nashville, Tennessee, and his daughter was attending university in Greece. A microcosm of global migration patterns.
We meet so many interesting people on our travels. There was the eighty year old owner operator of the rental car agency who had spent most of his life operating his coffee plantations in Africa. The his farms were nationalized and he returned to Cyprus, with much of his money lost and his family in crisis. Now a small family enterprise had taken root on the street corner of Larnaca, with the old man still barking out orders and holding onto his role as patriarch. Suffering from cancer, but still sharp as a tack, he still calculated all the details of his contracts in his head, forgoing both calculator and computer.
There was the elderly gentleman who had grown up in Alexandria, the son of a wealthy family who owned a chain of Egyptian supermarkets but lost their fortune when Nasser took control. Educated in England, he rebuilt his fortune in the shipping trade. He spoke impeccable English and fluent Arabic, trading stories with Nabil about the the splendor of Egypt, before it's fortunes we're plundered by the nationalists.
There was the old woman whose home was tucked in alley in Lefraka who welcomed us into her courtyard and shared her childhood memories of the village. Fluent in English, retired, with children who lived in Brooklyn and summered with her in Cyprus, we marveled at the simplicity of her grandmothers village home and how far from these humble beginnings the family had travelled.
There was the couple in Omodos whose children lived in Pennsylvania, but who still manned their storefront in the village. There was the woman in Lefraka who had raised and educated her family in London, and then returned to the mountain village with her husband to care for his dying mother. There was the desk clerk, who had been sent to England for his education and just barely escaped military service in the Turkish Cypriot conflict that claimed the life of his first cousin and best friend.
Chance encounters with strangers whose life stories are a reminder that life
is unpredictable, shaped by chance and sprinkled with luck and misfortune! It is a reminder of the tremendous survival instinct that enables us to reinvent ourselves. It speaks to our capacity for change and ability to adapt to new circumstances. It is a reminder that life happens...and happily so for us, at least for now !
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