After our first day's ride in Cyprus I couldn't decide what seemed more absurd, the political situation here or the idea of riding a bike on this island. (A brief oral history of the situation here was relayed by Eric and Anne at our rest the other day. They lowered their voices a number of times so not to be overheard by others in the restaurant. Apparently the Greeks came down here and planted a seed of discontent in the brains of the recently liberated Cypriots. They proposed that it might be a great idea to have an all Greek government and maybe reunite with Greece.
They seemed to forget about the fact that well over a third of the population here was Turkish and Muslim. They started persecuting the Turks and excluding them from the government. Looking at a map you may have noticed that Turkey is a little closer to Cyprus than Greece. If you have ever met a Turk you may know that they are a proud people and don't take well to seeing their own abused, hence their subsequent invasion and annexing of one-third of Cyprus should come as no surprise. Except if you are a Greek or Greek Cypriot and have your head deeply buried in the sand.) The ridiculousness of riding in Cyprus was not soon forgotten.
We began roughly where we had ended two days earlier \--on the hideously narrow road now joined by impatient weekday Cypriot drivers as well as a generous number of nervous tourists each in his rented Suzuki Samarai. I narrowly escaped being run over by a slow moving truck when I erroneously assumed that a blinking left hand turn signal meant that the driver intended to turn left. Silly me! Thankfully I was marginally faster than the truck and its wild-eyed driver and lived to tell this tale. I can't begin to tell you what the terrain along the road looked like because I have no memory of it except of the white line marking the highway edge and my effort trying to keep my bike as close to it as possible.
After about 15K of torture we turned off the main highway onto a little road by a dam. At first we guessed that we'd made a mistake. There were no drivers on the road. Just when we'd become accustomed to riding as though our lives would end at any moment we suddenly found ourselves breathing, looking around and, remarkably, enjoying riding once again. It seemed strange what difference it was to ride a few meters from the main road. The cars that did pass us did so sanely, all the cars not just the timid tourists. This also marked the end of our sea-level ride.
We began climbing abruptly and the altitude afforded us sweeping views across the brown brushy hills to the teal sea. Sweat poured off our bodies as we puffed up the canyon towards the mountains. Miraculously, just as I began to feel as though I'd perspired out all of my salt a little restaurant appeared. It turned out not to be a restaurant but a convenience store with a very limited selection of food. We were satisfied nonetheless by a package of cookies, two bags of chips and more beverages than you could shake a stick at. The shop keep spoke no English except to tell us the price of our consumption and repeatedly tell us that they had no sandwiches.
Some three hundred meters higher up the mountain we found another \"restaurant\". This one run by a woman with brillo pads for hair and loads of cats roaming around her yard. She made us nasty canned lunch meat sandwiches while Andy played with the cats. I watched in amusement while his eyes turned red from his allergies. He cried and sneezed while demonstrating the \"international kitty pet\" to the locals and feeding the little pregos his luncheon meat. The cats were greatly satisfied by the attention Andy gave if not by our lunch which one nearly gagged on. After lunch the road pitched upward at an even steeper grade.
We pumped and dripped through dinky villages full of women dressed like nuns and their mustached husbands. Judging by their reactions of disbelief our kind of travel is not commonplace here or they were shocked that we hadn't been run over already on the main road. We ascended to 860 meters before leveling off and gradually descending. After only 60km I was already a bit tired and ready to call it a day. Andy, in contrast, exclaimed that he could ride an equal distance and climb an equal amount before stopping for the night. Just the same, we had the option of climbing further and riding another five kilometers or descending to the next village to call it a day.
Andy voted for descent and I could hardly disagree. It was the fastest five kilometers I'd ridden in a long time. Reaching speeds over 60km/h we zipped into Pera-Pedhi. Traveling so fast we almost completely overshot the village until stopping at its edge in search of a place to lodge for the night. For a few moments we were worried that we might have to back-track the five km up to the last village and ride another five km up because we couldn't find anyplace to stay. I wouldn't call the villagers exactly warm and helpful either. Two loafing octogenarians opted to make lewd gestures at Andrew rather than help us locate a room.
Another told us that there were no rooms in town (ironically we saw him drinking later in the restaurant of the pension we ended up staying in). Defeated and tired (even though Andy \"could ride another 60km and climb another 1200 meters\") we began to backtrack up the hill. Just before leaving the village we came upon a sign advertising rooms and scrambled up the dirt driveway to inquire about them. Nick, the owner, and his snarling dog Wolfie greeted us smiling. Nick showed us a \"just completed\" room and a place for our bikes and we were sold. He offered to make us a roasted chicken for dinner and I was more than satisfied.
So what if the room would never be featured in Architectural Digest, the pink plaid comforters and matching towels would do the trick and left us wondering if Nick was widowed or a little light in his loafers. After check-in and before dinner I went on with the laborious task of finishing \"Beloved\" by Toni Morrison while Andrew caught up on writing his delinquent passages. If she can win a Nobel Prize....