Posted by caroline
I ha d a project to go for a walk. Naively I thought that there would be public footpaths and marked routes to follow. But of course, in a country too hot to walk around in for most of the year, there aren't. I am having to give up my desire for map accuracy and predictability.
This does seem to mean much coming to dead ends in Cyprus. We cut across the back of the prehistoric village site in Lemba, and followed a promising track which led up the valley. It grew smaller and finally vanished into the stream.We backtracked around through Kissonerga; it became apparent that roads are a far less defined thing here. If you can get a car along it, it's a road. So the road can vary from a dirt track to pavement-girt tarmac in a few paces. Some areas around Kissonerga have the look of a a prefab estate - roads and pavements but no longer any dwellings - here, they haven't been put up yet. We followed our noses along small lanes, passing orchards of oranges and small fields of varied crops. A few cows tethered by rope, with their calves, formed a strange contrast to the mushrooming development of Emba. The impression of Cyprus I'm forming is a mixed one of concrete mixers, flash cars, cottage agriculture (on a scale no one would be bothered with in the UK),outdoor ovens, stuccoed and marbled supervillas with chickens scratching in the dirt where the garden should be.
