Another good holiday with Pat. I couldn't find the original of this story - but had copied out bits before to send to someone, and found that.

The bridge was good, except that I celebrated my birthday while we were there, and everybody bought me drinks - so by the end of the bridge session that night, I could hardly see the cards much less play them properly.

 

We flew into tiny Paphos airport about 1 p.m., and after the various formatilies, got on a coach which drove about 20 minutes along narrow dirty roads to our hotel. The main impression was one of disappointment. Although the weather was lovely, the view was one of empty fields - hardly a flower in sight. We did see what looked like a crop of potatoes growing. There were leaves on most trees, and some patches of green grass, but most of the landscape was grey and dull brown.

We passed through a sleepy village - and hoped it was only so uninteresting looking because it was siesta time. Then we turned into what appeared to be still very much open countryside, and were set down next to a brand new hotel - which was the newest possible, being the farthest out built to date from Paphos. There were dozens more in the process of being constructed in all directions around ours.

Our programme was planned with bridge every evening, and we liked to swim and sunbathe each morning, so I decided I would go exploring the town in the afternoons. There were regular busses each half hour from outside the hotel - 10 p to Paphos - which was very good value.

We walked for over an hour, looking at each shop and market stall, and pricing things. We were very disappointed both in the choice and the prices. We bought some Cyrpus Delight (very similar to Turkish Delight) at one stall; A little girl came out and offered us some to try, which we did. Then Pat decided that although her English was very good, she would give her a bit of free coaching. So she had the girl read off the labels of the various boxes of this candy all the ingredients, and corrected her when she mispronounced anything. The girl was enjoying the attention and her parents (whom Pat embarrassingly mistook for her grandparents) were very proud of her. When I told her father that I was not intending to buy that day, but was just looking, he lost all interest in me, and just concentrated on Pat, who in the end bought a box of candy.

We then went to the next stall - which was lace things - mostly tablecloths and such, but some hankies. Pat wanted some lace trimmed ones, and got them for the bargain price of 20 pence each. We had a young woman wait on us, who was very friendly and had very good English. Then we went into the next shop, and the same lady followed us in to wait on us, and the same in the next shop. Then we crossed the road to go into a jewelry shop, and the same lady followed us in there. We decided she must be the only one who had good English, so everybody used her when there were English customers.

We wandered up and down and in and out and nothing was sufficiently interesting for us to decide to come back to it. We saw some little shops with people actually making leather goods, or doing some other craft. The people were a mixture of shy and rather resentful of tourist types and rather pushy over-bearing ones who were determined that we should buy from them. Having seen what the tourist industry had done to their seacoast and their town, one could not blame them for being resentful, but without the British tourists, their economy would be much worse off - so I felt that there was some justification for our presence there. We were told that there was absolutely no unemployment in Cyprus. Due to the tourists, no doubt.

On Friday, we had better luck in terms of sight seeing. We went by bus to the lower part of Paphos called Katopaphos. This had been described to us as the more modern and commercial area, but we had been so disappointed in the older authentic bit that we felt that we must see the contrast and judge for ourselves. We passed by a camel, all dressed up in finery, waiting for somebody to have a ride on him. I wanted to go closer and see him properly, but I don't approve of exploiting camels or any other animals for commercial purposes. I don't know how unhappy the camel was - he was completely on his own. Another day I saw him grazing on the few dry bits of grass growing on this dusty field, and he didn't look too unhappy.
 

When we reached the upper road, we saw a large area of ruined building - labelled a Byzantine castle. There were a few arches and bits of wall intact, but mostly it was just a pile of big yellow blocks of stone. They certainly didn't go into tourism in the sort of way Americans would have done. You could wander over the ruins, but there were no postcards, no leaflets or booklets to buy about what had originally been there - no reconstructed idea to let you know how it originally would have looked - or even labels to say how old it was, or which room was which. On one hand I was pleased that commercialism had not yet taken over. On the other hand I was so disappointed because I was sure that it t was an interesting part of history that I might have learned about-without much effort on somebody's part - which if done well just might not have spoiled the country.

Sunday was much the same as the other days, but in the afternoon Pat and I took a taxi (the busses were infrequent on Sunday) to the Tombs of the Kings. This was a special area some distance up the coast from Paphos. The rich people of the third and fourth Century BC had built elaborate catacombs for their families. I don't think they were kings but just important people.

Each building had five or more holes in the walls each the size of a coffin. Then there was an anteroom where there would be sacrifices and places for the relatives to collect for mourning. There were hundreds of these on the sight but only about eight had been reconstructed to the extent that they were available for the public to see and walk around. The rain of the previous night had meant there were several inches of water on the floor of most of them, but with careful hopping about, we managed to see most of what there was to see. Again the site was totally uncommercialized, other than having someone to sell tickets of 20 penceeach and guide books for £1, and an ice cream van outside. 

Pat bought a guide book but it really wasn't a whole lot of help. The tombs were numbered, but other than that unlabelled. On the best example, you could see the plaster on the walls which was painted in a pastle colour. The tombs themselves were long since robbed of the attending riches that would have been buried with the dead person, and there were no bones either. Archeologists were busy excavating other parts of the site.

Monday was our trip into the Trudos Mountains. We had a very good guide, who told us all sorts of interesting sidelines as we went on the 2 1/2 hour bus trip. We started by going up into a suburb of Paphos which was where the Turkish Delight type candy was all made.

She told us about how the pattern of life for the Cypriot was for the men and women to work in the fields in the morning. Then the women came home and cleaned house, fed the children and did all the other chores and the men went to coffee houses and sat and talked to other men. We did notice that outside each little village there would be a collection of men chatting.

We drove by some trees which appeared to have black beans hanging from them- those were carab beans - and had been an important part of their economy as they made very good artificial chocolate. But now they were mostly used for goat food.

There were lots of olive trees, and she said that St. Paul and St. Barnabus were supposed to be a sort of  Johnny Apple Seeds for olives. (Do you understand that reference?) They walked around eating them and spitting pips out allover so that the trees grew wherever they walked. They are called Apostles Trees.

The other tree she mentioned was the eucalyptus which she said they brought in from Australia to cure their problem of mosquitoes causing malaria. Apparently the eucalyptus tree dries up the swamps and maybe the medicinal smell has some effect on the mosquitoes too.

We drove by lots of deserted villages - they had been occupied by the Turkish Cypriots but when the war came, the end result was that all the Turkish Cypriots left their homes and went into the North and all the Greek Cypriots left their homes in the north and came South. They lived in each other's houses, but they were not allowed to sell, or change them in any way. A lot of the dispossessed people, including her parents, preferred to emigrate. She had lived in Australia until she was 8, which no doubt contributed to her excellent English.

The north part of Cyprus is now is out-of-bounds for all tourists. The airport there is for the U.N. Peace Keeping force only in the demilitarized zone they control. Most villages were either Turkish only, and those had a minaret for their mosque, or Greek only and those had a church. There was one unique village which had both.

One completely empty village had another cause for its abandonment. They had had an earthquake 38 years ago, and most of the village was destroyed. No one was willing to take the chance of living there again. She said that statistically there is a terrible earthquake in Cyprus which is located on a fault line, every 40 years, so it could happen anytime now.

While we were driving up towards the mountains, the scenery was very different from what we'd seen in the towns. There were lots of vines - and fields of citrus fruits. They all looked like they were doing well, despite the drought. Last year they had had no rain at all, and all the reservoirs had dried up completely. Then they had rain just in Paphos, not in the rest of the country, and one reservoir there had still a bit of water in from that. Then this past year, it had rained on other parts of the island but not at all in Paphos, except for the other night.

Most fields had hoses in them, showing that they were irrigated. As we climbed higher, the heat would not be so intense, and there would be early dew to help moisten the grapes. One side of the hills looked flourishing and the other side looked dry and infertile. I presumed that that was because of the sun and wind and rainfall pattern. We passed a mine where they produced some mineral which was used in the paint industry and exported to Russia.

The road became narrower and steeper and before the first stage of the trip was over, various people in the bus were feeling very ill. So the driver had to stop and let them get some fresh air.
 
The guide told us a story about how one of the monks and a bus driver had died at the same time and both arrived in front of St. Peter together. The bus driver was let straight through but the monk was questioned for a long time by St. Peter, and he was very confused as why this should be, because surely he must have been a holier man. It was because all the people in the bus prayed for the driver whenever he went up into the mountains. She said she hoped we would pray for our driver too. It certainly was a hair-raising drive.

After an hour and a half's drive, we stopped at a little coffee shop and had a half hour break. There was a small Greek Orthodox Church across the road, and the guide went and asked the priest to open it so we could go inside and take pictures of the icons it we wanted to, because when we went to the monastery, the church there forbid any taking of photographs. The church was very small and not very exciting in content. I didn't bother taking any pictures.

Just as we were getting ready to get back on the bus, an old lady dressed all in black heavy clothes, as all the women are, was walking a donkey laden with sticks up the road. Dozens of women from our bus rushed out to take pictures of her. I felt it was a terrible disgrace and refused to join the bunch. But the lady was not about to be taken advantage of. She put out her hand, and they paid her for the privilege of taking her picture. I must admit I got one of her from the bus for free.

We started back up the hill, but stopped again after a few minutes in the next little village. Several of the women didn't think they could face another hour of twisting roads, so they opted to just stay in the village where we would be rejoining them for lunch at 2:30. We were told that there were 350 bends in the road that we then went on. I think it was an underestimate, but the scenery was spectacular.

There were two major types of fir trees - one that looked just like our Scots Pine, and another quite different one, the Cyprus pine, with branches that bend downwards. The guide told us the story relating to that. Originally, there was a monk who was very holy who lived alone on the top of the hill. His reputation spread that he could cure people. So some unscrupulous Persians came to see him, and somehow tricked him. As a punishment the leader was cursed by the monk with some terrible disease. He begged to be cured, and promised to repent, but the monk said, he would not cure him unless he brought the icon of the Virgin Mary, which was painted by St. Luke, and that would then be part of the Monastery which would be built on the top of the mountain. The Persians went away, and came back with the icon, and so the story goes, the fir trees bent their branches in honour of Mary. But the icon, which we didn't really see, must always be covered. Another story goes that somebody took a peak under the cloth that covers it and was instantly struck blind. But when there was the terrible drought, the people took the icon in procession out onto the tomb of President Macarios which is very close by, and prayed for rain, and apparently they had seven days non stop rain. I'm not quite sure how that fit into her story about the reservoirs being so very empty. But maybe that story was of older origin.

We were told stories most of the way up the hill, so it made it less of a tedious journey. When we reached the top, we were told that we would have only 10 minutes of talking time in the church itself. The buildings were very clean and modern looking. Apparently they were originally about the 11th century, but have been rebuilt many times, and the most recently in the late 19th century. But the mosaics and wall paintings in the church were only just finished the week before we got there. The paintings took 20 years to do, and they painted on top of the previous ones, which seemed unfortunate to those who like antiques to actually be antiques.

We went through various courtyards, and inside the first one was an old man who grinned a toothy smile trying to rent us bathrobes to cover our nakedness. But we had all been warned in advance, and nobody had a low neckline, bare arms or shorts on. We walked along corridors and down stairs, and then into the church. It was very dark, lit only by candles. There was not one spare inch of space not covered in an icon or picture or engraving. It was all bejeweled and very rich seeming and beautiful in a sort of way, but not my idea of what I like a church to look like. Many of the icons were jewel encrusted and everything was covered in gold. No women were allowed in the holiest part of the church, we could only peak through.

At services the women sat in the back and the men at the sides and front, but our guide mentioned that these days it’s only women who go to church so they do get to sit farther forward in order to make it look more like a congregation. She herself was baptized in the church. She said a religious mother would try very hard to get her child baptized at the monastery and all girl babies to have the privilege were called Mary. She pointed out to us the village where she was born, where she can no longer go, due to the Turkish problem.

After we had spent about an hour wandering around the church and some went to see the museum attached to it, others just took pictures of the outside and enjoyed the scenery. We then went up to Macarios' tomb. We were told the history of his life. He was sent to the monastery as a small boy, but when he was high school age, was went to a private school, then on to college in Athens, and postgraduate training in the United States. He became bishop of Paphos which is a prerequisite for becoming archbishop of Cyprus. Then of course he became involved in making Cyprus independent and was the first President. She obviously considered him a saint. He had asked to be buried so he could see into the occupied territory. There were soldiers guarding the tomb 24 hours a day, on half hour shifts. They couldn't move a muscle while they were guarding.

As we approached the road up to the tomb, there was a little Cypriot man playing a wooden flute, and obviously hoping for some money in his cap. None of us was forthcoming. So he tried singing instead. It was so awful I decided that it would be worth paying him to go back to the flute. When we went back down he was back on his flute, so I gave him some money to show my preference.

On the way back down to our eating place, our guide Mary told us about the native animals which are protected by the government. They are part goat, part deer and called Worflons. They were almost made extinct a few years ago, so are now carefully protected, and we did see a herd of them looking oddly graceful, on a ranch on the way back. Apparently the fine for shooting one is three months in jail.

We took an even longer and windier way down the mountains. There was only one road up to the monastery - all other roads had been blocked because they led to the other part of the island which are now off limits. The reason for the new route was to go by yet another monastery, although we only just saw it as we were passing by. There was a holy girdle in that place which infertile women were supposed to put on, and then when they conceived as they were likely to do, if they had boys, they had to bring them to the monastery for life.

When we reached our half-way down village, we met up again with our ladies who had not felt up to the trip. Our meal was set out in buffet fashion, and jugs of rough red wine were on the tables. The food was all Cypriot - salads, vine leaves, stews with very fat meat, rice, etc. After the meal, we got back into the bus and had an uneventful ride back to the hotel.
 

The next day, I decided to do my own thing, and after breakfast set out to explore the ancient bits that I had not yet seen in Katopaphos. I got the bus at 15 to 9, and walked along the waterfront. There was an old man chopping the bottom leaves off the palm trees. We had often wondered about the different appearance of the bottoms of these trees, so I watched in fascination how it all happened.

I crossed the dusty path and watched my camel grazing. Then I walked down the upper road to the mosaics - and found that I was the first customer. There were no signs or anybody to help you find out where to go, so the first thing I did was peek in the locked houses of what must have been areas which were being excavated but not yet open for the public. Then I back-tracked and tried some other places that I thought looked likely, and that turned out to be somebody's garage. So I tried to look inconspicuous, wandered back to the entry, and waited for some more tourists to come so I could follow them in.

And sure enough a bus load soon arrived, and I found that I had been looking inside the fence instead of outside it where the biggest find was. This was a huge house with all the floors covered in mosaic pictures. They had uncovered and reconstructed about 75% of it. There were wooden bridges above the rooms so nobody actually walked down onto the mosaic floors, but you got a good view of them. Then I found the other two houses and the other outside areas of mosaics in various stages of being reconstructed. Then I wandered to the reconstructed ampitheatre and the not reconstructed market square. It was very impressive, but also disappointing in that one could have learned so much more with a bit of sign posting and explanations.

At the end we had a Cypriot banquet, followed by folk dancing. It was a very pleasant week