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But
what did we care? this place is beautiful. Within the first hour
we had seen trees, flowers, herbs, oranges and lemons, avocados,
a kingfisher, butterflies - all that was missing were the Disney
chipmunks and Snow White!
All
along the coast the views are stunning, the cliff rocks are banded
with copper ore and yellow sulphur turns the ore an iridescent green.
We visited the disused Polis copper mine with it's long jetty, running
a train track out to the ships that used to take the ore for smelting.
Then
we made our way up into the mountains, through the Paphos Forest,
the largest wooded area in Cyprus, shadey pines, olive trees and
orange groves surrounded us and the fresh cool mountain air all
made our walk down to the village very pleasant indeed.
For
some reason there are an awful lot of cacti growing in these mountains
- not sure if they are indigenous or not as there are plenty of
imports in Cyprus - from the eucalyptus trees to the Brits.
On
the way down the mountain we visited a new church - only built in
1992. The entire inside was decorated with Frescos of saints with
more than a slight anti-Turk angle (plenty of gory beheading etc.)
The gold leaf work, icons and carving gave a taste of how things
must have looked in Byzantine times. It's only a shame that it was
not appropriate to photograph inside the church as the colour and
quality of the work was breathtaking.
Then
all that remained was to enjoy a Meze, a sort of endless stream
of delicious Greek Cypriot dishes and some local wine. Since the
theme of the retreat is 'nourishment' we couldn't have got off to
a finer start.
Then
it was back on the bus for 'bazouki stars on 45 - the Nana Maskouri
Musical Tribute album' and we all rolled home to Renos apartments.
This yoga business isn't all hard work and self flagellation you
know! But there's always tomorrow!
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