Having rested the day before, I jumped up cheerfully in the morning and started pestering Rybakov: time to ride, great deeds await! Sasha wasn't expecting such an ambush from me, but he accepted my proposal with enthusiasm. The thing is, for this day we had planned what was probably our most interesting route, and a rather strenuous one at that. From a fairly high-quality brochure on cycling in Troodos authored by the notorious CTO, we scooped up a circular mountain route. It's easy to grab this publication at the airport, and, frankly, at any infocenter.
Troodos is a mountain range in the center of Cyprus, with its highest point being Mount Olympos (basically Olympus, if we're speaking Russian), 1,952 meters high, where a British military base is still located to this day.
The route we laid our eyes on is divided into three in the brochure, and for good reason. Although the creators of the booklet, with their sparkling sense of humor, lay on such wonderful mush that I'll even quote it.
At the mention of riding in the mountains, exhausting climbs come to mind, but not so fast! When it comes to Troodos, the reality is entirely different. On the idyllic Mediterranean island of Cyprus, the Troodos Cycling Network means roads and trails of incredible natural beauty that are easy to ride. Like everything else on the island of Aphrodite, the riding makes you fall in love with it. Nowhere on this nature tour does the elevation change by more than 400 meters. It's as if Mother Nature herself intended to keep the cyclist's thighs rested and relaxed.
If you are in your right mind, you can't take these words as anything other than irony written with a malicious smirk. The thing is, while the difference between any two points is indeed just 400 meters, the total elevation gain (a concept we are already intimately familiar with) is over 2km! On our track, by the way, even the difference is 670 meters.
Obviously, the authors of the publication are well aware that most cycle tourists are by no means participants in the Tour de France, so they took pity and split the route into three parts after all. Granted, it's unclear how to tackle it, given that it's essentially entirely circular, and even a car won't help you start in one place and finish in another. We started from Pedoulas, and it was a very, very wise decision to ride in the recommended direction (that is, 1c, then 1a, and then 1b). The thing is, the route is cunningly designed so that all the descents fall on dirt roads, and the climbs on asphalt (which makes up just over half the route). Doing the combination the other way around, in my opinion, can only be ridden if you have steel cables instead of ligaments, and servo drives instead of muscles.
No sooner had we made it out of Pedoulas than I immediately dove into adventurism. I say to Sasha: "It's boring riding on asphalt, let's turn onto the dirt road."
The result: +200 meters of elevation gain, but the dirt road, sparkling with diamonds of quartz rocks in the scorching sun, was probably the most beautiful in my life. At the end of it was a spring (even marked on the OSM map), but having drunk some water from it, I bitterly regretted it: my insides did not get along with the local bacteria at all, and for the rest of the day I suffered from a bad stomach, albeit relatively moderately. My experience says that in the heat you need to be more careful with your choice of food and water in general, and I personally definitely shouldn't be drinking energy drinks or coffee with cream (I repent, I am a sinner).
Churchill!
Athletic trail
The forests of Troodos are distinguished by their beauty and ingenuity!
The locals and their friends build viewpoints. Will I live to see the day when such a thing happens in our villages?
The trails are quite technical in places, but this is not one of those cases
At one point Rybakov and I got separated: he rode along the track I had copied from some unknown vagabonds, and I followed the signs. Both of us, however, descended into the exact same village of Phini, where a terrible thing was discovered — a snapped chain on Sasha's bike. Fortunately, a wise traveler carries a chain tool with him, and while he was reconnecting the chain, I popped into the local administration building. If only we lived like this: for a tiny mountain village, a massive three-story building with a chrome elevator for 12 people, everything inside finished with wood, a conference room packed with encyclopedias and reference books. Built with EU money, as usual (even though there are ten times more such signs in Latvia, you do come across them in Cyprus too).
The treacherous chain was defeated, albeit not immediately, and we moved on. We were a bit pressed for time, so there aren't as many photos as I would have liked, and we didn't spend long looking at the surroundings either.
But the most inspiring things are always with us, no need to look specifically for them
The cycle route is set up properly — every five to ten kilometers there's a rest stop and a spot to admire the beauty
We reached the trout farm, but by that time we had already stuffed some grub into ourselves, so we didn't touch down for lunch. A shame, probably, since it's not often you get to taste fish that was swimming around just a moment ago, knowing no sorrow (unless you consider living in a small concrete-walled pool a sorrow).
The restaurant is located near the village of Platres, where there's a very interesting confectionery, or rather a chocolate workshop, founded by two expats from Britain. They make chocolate with all sorts of different flavors, often specific only to Cyprus, like local dried fruit sweets, wine, or condensed milk, and they even feed it to Queen Elizabeth back in the old homeland. True, a single chocolate costs a euro or even two, but they finish making it right before your eyes. However, I wouldn't have managed to transport it in the heat all the way to my native Latvia, so you'll have to take my word for it that the chocolate shop is world-famous.
By evening we reached a small village (Amiantos, I think), where we scarfed down a sandwich each. I have been eating very little meat for a few months now, and all the everyday inconveniences of this have caught up with me. In this case, I had to ask for and chow down on just a toasted bun with tomatoes — not the most exquisite dish, frankly speaking, although it crunches delightfully. In the coffee shop where we were dining, sits a crowd of old-timers, typical for southern countries: they unhurriedly read newspapers, solve crosswords, play backgammon, and lead their otherwise measured lives. I often envy such folks: my eternal curse and reward is that I'm incapable of sitting in one spot and doing one thing: call it a restless nature or a hot poker up my ass, but I perpetually want to move somewhere and do something. It's great when this activity is meaningful, but essentially — it doesn't matter what you're doing, as long as you're busy. It's all the damned dopamine driving me forward; the only hope is that if I meditate and practice the slow life movement, serotonin will take the upper hand, and things will get at least a tiny bit calmer.
By sunset we made it almost to Pedoulas. The final kilometers were very tough going: besides the fact that it got pretty chilly, over the course of the day we had once again climbed over two kilometers in elevation. When your blood glucose level drops that much, you inevitably slow down to a walk, and all your movements are sluggish, like a zombie's (or in slow motion). All of this, however, means nothing compared to the smoky outlines of the mountains and the setting sun above them. Not many people from flatlands have had the chance to see such beauty. On our planet, even though the number of travelers grows year by year, there are still very few of them. Plus, the feeling that you "earned" this under your own steam is immense. On the one hand, it's silly biology; on the other, the triumph of will and reason — it all depends on the interpretation. The longer I live, the more the gentle smile of the Buddha comes to mind — he knows that all this is a dream, a fleeting vision, and before you know it, it will dissipate. Enjoy, while you can.
