The third day promised to be action-packed — nearby was the Akamas Peninsula, which was the very reason we came to the north-western edge of the island. Good thing Sashka dragged me out there (at the cost of several bus rides, admittedly), otherwise I would have just kept riding around Troodos all day long, and those days would have been numbered, because the mountains there are exceptionally mountainous. I was convinced by an article in The Guardian, where Akamas is praised to the skies.
Akamas is not just a cape, but a national park with numerous endemic plant species, and, luckily, almost no trace of humans. Which plays right into our hands as lovers of escaping civilization. To map our route, we used tracks created by the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO), which are pretty decent. Though at times it feels like the track descriptions were written by someone with a big, malicious sense of humor (like many of my friends, so I can appreciate it). Far too often they throw around phrases like “a pleasant and easy route, nowhere does it have an elevation drop of more than 400 meters.” Maybe there is no drop, but the total elevation gain can easily be well over a kilometer, if not two. None of our friends have ever ridden that much — a 1.5-kilometer gain, especially if half of it is on dirt roads, is already considered very respectable, 1.8 is the ceiling, and anything over 2 is called “we sing a song to the madness of the brave.”
However, as is my nature, I’m getting ahead of myself — we still have a hell of a lot of pedaling to do to reach two kilometers.
A bit more about tracks — sites like https://gpsies.com and https://everytrail.com also served as sources. It's also very convenient that in Google Earth (where I usually lay out the route) you can instantly plug in the layer for the https://wikiloc.com site, which also has a ton of useful tracks. It once again confirmed the idea that it's not just the distance that matters, but the elevation profile too, so you don't end up having to storm the heights off-road at the end of the day. For this, the Google Earth software is an excellent assistant.
This concludes the portion of useful info, and starts what you love so much — emotional chewing gum and pics.