Time for one last entry before the big off. I can almost hear the sighs of relief from here 🙂 My taxi is booked to leave here at 1.30am. “Can you put in a wake-up call for around then as well, please? Just in case.” I asked the receptionist. “Certainly” she replied, “is 1.15am okay?”.
“Okay” is most certainly not a word I’d associate with that time of the morning, but it will have to do. Stupid Cyprus Airways and their early morning flights. “Do you have to leave at stupid o’clock in the morning?” I’ve asked everyone I’ve met from England. “Oh no, my flight’s at 8pm”, and other such sensible times. Just me then. I swear, if I’m the only one on the plane, except for some hyena stewardesses and the pilot – I’m not going to be pleased.
Back to the point, quite unsurprisingly, I didn’t wake up this morning in time for the coach to leave for Nicosia. But that’s fine, it was a free tour, since I’d booked with them anyway, and I think I’ve seen most of what I want to see with Nicosia. The lie-in will do me much better, when it comes to catching my flight and waking up ever again.
So instead, I decided I would go and see the Amathus ruins. After all, it’s why this tourist area is called what it is, so it should be worth a look. “Little remains of Amathus”, says the guide book. And not much else, so I had little idea what it was all about, but having seen some ruins on the way back from Nicosia, I decided to head in that general direction. Thirty minutes walk from my hotel, I looked up and saw what looked like remains of a wall, on top of the highest hill in the area. “Shit”, I thought to myself, and started to climb. On my way up, I kept hearing leaves, or something in the path in front of me. Quite sure the worst it could be was a poisonous snake out to kill me, I kept going up the deserted road leading to the deserted old stones.
When I reached the top, I had some fantastic views of the Limassol bay, and there were indeed a number of ruins, in various states of excavation. Apparantly excavation only begun in 1980, although a large number of the tombs had already been looted in the 19th century, and shockingly loads of the stones have been used in the construction of the Suez Canal. “Where are you going with those stones, Steve?”. “Oh they weren’t being used, they were just in a big temple shape up on top of that hill.” “Great, I’ll go fetch the donkey’s”. Little did I know it, but so far I’d only found the Acropolis, from the 11th century B.C. Pretty old then. There was a huge pot type thing just to the side, which I did learn what it was, and have since forgotten. Something to do with cleansing the sacrifices maybe.
Peering over the edge of a sheer drop, I noticed a lot more ruins down the other side of the hill. And they looked far more interesting, with pillars rising into the sky, and other people wandering around them. “Shit”, I thought to myself again, and started to walk back down the way I came.
On the way back down, I saw two big old lizards sunning themselves in the middle of the path. THAT’s what was making those russling noises! They were kinda cute in a don’t-come-near-me-and-we’re-fine way. I took a photo of one, but they scurried off when I got too close.
At the bottom of the hill, I decided that this new set of ruins must be much more exciting, because it had an entrance fee. 75 cents. I noted that the zoo made an extra 5 cents because of the Mouflon. And paid the man.
My 75 cents must have gone towards the big colourful boards that told me what everything was. There I learnt that the bit I’d already seen was Acropolis of ancient Amathous. The sanctuary of Aphrodite. I also learnt the big thing I was heading towards was the Agora of ancient Amathous (4th century B.C.) containing the rather impressive remains of temple of Aphorodite.
Aphrodite, remember, was the goddess born from the foam of the sea. And she’s something of an important figure around these parts. Rumour has it, that she originated from an earlier fertility goddess. Though in the myths of Aphrodite, she is much much more than that, and has been referred to by a number of names. One of which, “Pandemos – the goddess of all”. That’s rather a lot to live up to. War-like, “Egcheios, the goddess with the spear”, *male* “Aphroditos”, protects sailors (since she was born from the sea), and an image of beauty and magnifience. Like I said, a goddess with character, and should appeal to all. She was first mentioned in 8 B.C., by Homer (not Simpson), who referred to her as Aphrodite, or Kypris, and by Hesiod who called her “Kyprogena”, the Cyprus-born. It was much much later though, before the people of Cyprus referred to her as Aphrodite. I guess because she already had so many other names already.
There’s a nice map at the temple, showing all the other places of Aphrodite you can go do. It’s all part of the “Cyprus Strategic Plan for Tourism to the year 2010”. I don’t really understand what strategic methodologies they’ve implemented for this – but I assume it goes along the lines of “more tourists = more money = good. We should get more tourists”. And this route they’ve created is probably an effort to do so. Presumeably by 2010, the Cypriots will have come up with a clever new plan, whereby they don’t have to keep dealing with tourists. And something else will take over. Or maybe nobody has thought about it yet.
So anyway, I look forward to seeing and/or speaking to you all when I get back 🙂