Saturday, March 13/2010

Moving day. And the last minute nearly forgots as we note that the drying rack is still on the balcony and J threads an old t-shirt through the handle holes in an already sealed box. It looks too much, but everything packs into M's little hired car - except J himself, who walks the short distance. No lift to the mezzanine at the Sunflower but we get it safely stowed away.



Then off to Agia Napa - or rather the hills above it - to a little chapel accessible by dirt track. The Greek name translates as "St. Forty" - and we joke about Ali Baba and the forty thieves, as the chapel is actually a large cave that has had a whitewashed cement wall built across the front - blue wooden door inserted. Inside there is the usual icon and oil lamp - clearly a holy place for genertions, probably centuries. There is a visitors' book, hard covered with damp - soft pages drifting loose. It's been taking entries since 2002 and we're now on the last page. As that's pretty full, I turn to look at the inside cover, which turns out to be a double page schematic of the London Underground system, routes in full colour.



We sit outside for a while, eating crisps and sharing beer and looking over the fields to a haze covered sea. Maggi's been photographing the flowers on our walk along the path - stunning little purple flowers like miniature violets, poppy-like white ones, silvery stars, yellow daisies and golden mimosa bushes in full flower as far as the eye can see. Others we're not even sure of. Orchids? There are a lot in Cyprus, which has its own little ecology due to having escaped the ravages of the ice age but received deposits from glaciers moving south.

As we sit, other visitors come and go. A Greek man shows us the contents of his plastic bag. He's been picking something in the fields, and we suppose snails, as we've spotted some ourselves, but he shows us a green spiky thing about two inches in diameter. Yes, it's to eat - and a few minutes later a aboy comes back to us with something cut in pea sized pieces, and tasting somewhat like raw peas. So a wild artichoke of some sort. Not bad, but probably better sauteed.



Then a German couple arrive with backpacks and hiking boots. Not young but quite fit. They've been walking cross-country and Maggi points them on to St. Elias chapel, also on a hill. From there they'll be able to get a bus home. And we ourselves wander back to the car and drive on back, stopping at Agia Napa harbour - now beginning to bloom with tourists - for a sandwich and a beer. Lovely day - warm but not too hot. Agia Napa is more touristy than Larnaca, but it's also closer to the lovely hills and fields of rural Cyprus.