Mountain Rose Hotel 9:00ish
I drove to Pedoulas, a mountain community, from Platres for cheap lodging. $17 lodging to be exact. Since I'll be traveling for 90 days every cent I can save on lodging adds up. Especially since lodging to me is simply a bed, shower, and hopefully WiFi. The room was chilly, but I slept well and was fine under blankets. Besides, I like sleeping in the cold anyway. Cold showers are an entirely different story. Running the shower was beginning to concern me - it was lukewarm at best. I was beginning to wonder if my savings backfired - a cold room is one thing. A cold shower is completely different. Luckily, after running the water for 5-10 minutes the water got very hot. Whew. After a quick shower I packed my stuff and head down to checkout. I was given a physical key for the room so I had to return it to the front desk. I was greeted by an older Greek woman who took the key and asked if i wanted coffee or breakfast. I rejected and got a funny luck and a question..."why? why you not want breakfast?" Guess who can't say no to a 65 year old Greek-Cypriot offering him breakfast? Yep...me. I asked what breakfast included and the woman rattled off a laundry list of things. I made only one request this time - could I have my eggs scrambled. Sure she said. For the next 10 minutes I could hear her yell at whomever was cooking my food about how to make scrambled eggs. The girl who checked me in the night before stopped by to say hi (I wonder if they ever let her go home) asked if I wanted regular or fresh queezed orange juice. I asked about the price and was told the difference was 7 euro. The entire breakfast ended up being 7 euro - so I think the difference was 2 euro. All in all a steal.
I was promised bacon, yet given none.
I'd be ticked but the fresh squeezed OJ made up for it.
Finding Caledonia
The WiFi was still useless at the hotel, so I was on my own finding the
Caledonia trail. I knew the trail was somewhere between Troodos and
Platres, so heading to Troodos was the first step. After reaching the
visitors center around Troodos I was directed towards Platres. A woman
at one of the shops mentioned I'd pass a restaurant and to park there.
People out here speak with thick accents and sometimes broken English so
I wasn't sure if I was told restaurant or rest stop. Well, I reached
Platres and saw neither nor a trail in sight. D'oh! Noticing the car
only had about 1/3 of a tank of gas, I stopped for fuel. It's full
service out in these parts, so I asked the attendant for directions. She
took me in the shop to someone who spoke English. One of the customers
was helpful and mentioned to keep an eye out for a restaurant called
Trout Farm and the trail would be right outside the restaurant. After
10 minutes of searching, I found it. I should note Trout Farm really was
both a restaurant and a Trout Farm.
Open road leaving Troodos
Balkans War Memorial
Calendonia!
Sign for Caledonia, Path leading to the trail
Hiking Caledonia
So in fairness to the park district officials, they make it pretty clear this isn't an easy hike...and they were right. While the path was by no means had, it wasn't trivial either. The path had a pretty constant grade and lots of steps and streams to cross.
The return hike wasn't bad and went quick. I probably spent a total of 2 hours hiking back and forth.
Reaching Omodos
Omodos is another mountain village that was suggested I pass through. There were dozens of shops and restaurants, but the suggested restaurant Themis suggested I visit was closed. I stopped by a coffee shop to update the blog and have some coffee. After about an hour the internet stopped working. I figured it was their nice way of telling me to leave, so I began to pack up. Before I could leave the woman who served me stopped by to apologize. She pointed to a couple of internet terminals saying everything was offline. All in all it's for the better because I was ready to get moving.
Omodos
Wine Tasting
After finding Caledonia, I was to head off to Limassol. En route were several wineries. I stopped by one to get an idea of what a Cyprus winery was. While it's no Napa Valley, the samples I had were pretty good.
Lambori Winery
Niki's Place
Before reaching Limassol I booked what appeared to be a nice B&B style hotel room for the night called Niki's Place. The cleaning fee associated with AirBnB rentals usually makes one night stays uneconomical, so I usually use Kayak in those situations. Kayak offers the general area and a map of its own to where the property is. Unfortunately for me, the address listed in Kayak is in English but not on their map. Further, both Google, Apple, and Skobbler maps struggle to find places in here. Further, from visiting Themi earlier in the week, I learned that a street name can exist in a single city more than once...so all bets were off even if I found a match. What made Niki's Place even more challenging to find was the fact it was on an off street. The courtyard also was closed to the street - a fence you can not see through opens to the courtyard. You can't see anything from the outside. Great for privacy, a problem for finding the place. After about 2 hours of comparing maps between my GPS and the Kayak Map, I found it. Making out shapes of the surrounding streets from the Kayak map and finding a similar pattern on the Skobbler made it possible. I use Skobbler for turn by turn instructions, it's a great cheap app for the iPhone with world maps. After a call home and some relatives in Cyprus, I was out to socialize.
Exterior of Niki's Place - The blue door was the entrance to my room
Not my photo
A nice, clean, and quaint room for right around $50!
A Night Out in Limassol
Most of the nightlife in Limassol is along the waterfront. There are lots of bars and clubs, but none of them were very active. I've heard from multiple sources Cypriots go out late - but by the time I left the B&B it as after midnight. Everything was dead. I spent about an hour looking around to take in the scene. On my way back, for reasons not understood, some psycho decided to follow me. I know he was following me because i was navigating in a circle and he was still behind me. Eventually, I decided I could shake him by pulling up to a group of people and ask for some directions or advice - for all he knew the fact I was talking to these strangers meant they were my friends. The trick worked, and he jetted off. Between the idiot following me and the frustration behind finding the B&B, I was beginning to wonder if I had enough of the island.
One of the calls I made reaching Niki's was to my grandmother's brother. My grandmother passed away in '97, but came from a big family with eight siblings. Her brother I would visit would be 92. The plan was to stop by at 10am the next day and meet him. She has two other siblings in Cyprus. Before I leave Cyprus I'm going to make an effort to meet them all.
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