Tuesday 10 May: Paphos to Latchi 30 miles

Final breakfast on the terrace before loading up the bikes and heading off through the unspeakably busy and overdeveloped outskirts of Paphos, with roadworks to boot! Lots of development sites pander to the Chinese and Russian markets. There's a drive through KFC, which we could see from the Tombs of the Kings site yesterday, and the King's Shopping Mall on a busy roundabout. We pass fields of bananas growing amidst all this development. Eventually we turn off this ghastly road for a 16 km ascent along winding roads, which are lightly trafficed. This takes the best part of an hour and a half. We stop along the way to marvel at how high we've climbed and pause for a Coke and Cyprus coffee accompanied by increasingly frenetic bazooki music playing in the background. We already seem a long way from touristy Paphos. Whilst the ascent is painful on the legs and lungs the descent is painful on the hands because of the continual breaking and dodgy road surface. We now glimpse the Troodos mountains to the East and down below the arid plain which meets the sea. We are in the land of Aphrodite (allegedly born from the ocean at Paphos but meeting Adonis in the Akaman peninsula, which is where we now are). So the name of our hotel is.....the Aphrodite beach hotel.....which we eventually find, further away from civilisation than we imagined possible whilst in Paphos! Lovely refreshing Keo beer and avocado,hummus and tzatziki dips for late lunch then onto the beach for reading and snoozing. I'm now reading "Journey into Cyprus" by Colin Thuberon as recommended by the Syrian gentleman we met yesterday lunchtime, a beautiful account of pre Turkish occupation Cyprus. Supper on the balcony overlooking the sea....I suppose Turkey is in fact the next landfall. I notice that above where we're eating is a swallows' nest, perched in the eaves. Interestingly they've made their nest just above a large fan, and right above one of the tables. At some stage the shit will literally hit the fan!