Digital Wanderer

We live as long as we fly

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Cyprus — 10, day nine, Lake Oroklini, Voroklini hill and Rizoelia forest

2015-08-10

You'd think nine days on wheels would be enough, but I still can't sit still. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Call yourself a tourist — go ride another CTO route. And if not a route, then at least follow the recommendations.

I decided to explore the surroundings — Lake Oroklini, which looks more like a pond, and a hill that supposedly offers a breathtaking view.

A roundabout with a modern fountain-sculpture in the center, consisting of two curved metal pipes from which jets of water shoot. Multi-story buildings are visible in the background under a clear blue sky.

Shipfountain

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I made it to the lake pretty quickly. The lake is tiny, but dozens of bird species visit it throughout the year, I think it even tops a hundred.

Actually, it's not a lake, of course, but a wetland, one of only seven natural ones in Cyprus.

An information board in Greek and English with a map of Lake Oroklini, explaining its ecosystem, birds, and birdwatching spots. The board shows a diagram of the lake, illustrations of local fauna, explanatory text blocks, and photos of the surroundings.

You won't figure it out without binoculars

A wall-mounted information board with text in Greek and English, illustrated with images of migratory birds, ducks, an eel, and people watching wildlife.

A winter landscape at sunset or sunrise with a bright sun above the horizon, illuminating a snow-covered field of dry grass and a road in the foreground. The sky transitions from orange to light blue.And eels here too

An information board dedicated to the history and significance of Lake Oroklini. It features texts in Greek and English, supplemented by illustrations (for example, ancient hunters, an airplane, children with birds) and small photos.

Two transparent plastic leaflet dispensers attached to a wooden wall. The left dispenser is empty, and the right one holds a leaflet with the text "Discover Oroklini Lake" and images of birds and the lake.

The brochures are brand new, clean, and sheltered from the rain

A long shadow of a person on a gravel road that veers to the right between dense trees and green grass under a bright blue sky.

Flamingos and their kin won't surprise us, we've seen this sort of thing in Italy

A panoramic top view of a coastal town with numerous buildings under red tiled roofs, stretching along the blue sea, with ships visible on the horizon. Below, the landscape consists of dry patches and green vegetation, with shrubs in the foreground, under a clear blue sky.

View from Voroklini hill

I must say that there are tons of cafes around here, which doesn't make much sense since the view from this hill isn't that different from the neighboring hills. Marketing?

A panoramic view from a hill of a coastal town and the sea under a clear blue sky. In the foreground are hillsides with dry grass and green shrubs, with a winding road leading to houses and fields below.

Was it worth climbing up here, I don't know, but after so many days, it didn't take much effort

A panoramic view of a coastal town with orange-roofed houses, stretching from dry hills to the shore. A blue sea is visible on the horizon under a clear sky.

 

A winter landscape at sunset or sunrise with a bright sun above the horizon, illuminating a snow-covered field of dry grass and a road in the foreground. The sky transitions from orange to light blue.

 

 

 

 

A large white water tank stands by a dirt road, surrounded by dry grass and trees, overlooking a coastal town and the blue sea under a clear sky.

They don't spare any water for protected natural areas.

 

 

A dirt road winds through dry hilly fields and sparse green trees under a clear blue sky with light clouds.

I decided to hit another similar hill. The road is scenic, but for a moderate MTBer, not an adrenaline junkie, it's sheer agony. You're either walking up on foot or squeezing the brakes for dear life on the way down, and it alternates every two minutes.

 

A dirt road winds around a hillside covered in dry grass and green shrubs, set against a clear blue sky. In the distance, a strip of coniferous forest is visible at the top of the hill.

The gradient is just off the charts, especially for a dirt road

A hilly landscape with dry yellowish grass in the foreground and light chalky hills in the distance under a clear blue sky. Small green groves and fields can be seen in the lowlands between the slopes.

 

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Ran into some goats along the way

A winding paved road stretches into the distance, with power lines running along its right side. On a dry hill in the background, the word "ΤΡΟΥΛΛΟΙ" (Troulloi) is laid out in large white letters.

And tro-lo-lo

An Orthodox stone church in the Byzantine style with arched facades and a tiled roof stands on a hill among trees under a clear blue sky.

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As we can see, Cyprus does have its own cows, even if there aren't many

 

A triangular warning road sign with the silhouette of a sheep is installed on the side of a paved road with a metal guardrail. Hilly fields of dry grass stretch around the road under a clear blue sky, and branches of a coniferous tree are visible on the left.

Sheepcoatl

A night view of a hotel complex with a brightly illuminated blue pool in the foreground. Behind the pool are white buildings with balconies, stairs, lit windows, a couple of closed beach umbrellas, and a "No Diving" sign.

Already close to Larnaca, I swung by the so-called Rizoelia "forest". Things are pretty sad when it comes to forests in Cyprus — what they call a forest is, by our standards, a tiny and rather sparse park. I didn't spot a single visitor there, despite the ton of picnic spots and the fact that it was the weekend. After awkwardly riding back and forth and clocking another ten or so kilometers on the hill where the forest is located, I gunned it back to the hotel.

On the way back, I stopped by the bike shop, which was actually open this time. There I scored a huge cardboard box, needed to pack the bike. And although I got it for free, and it included separate cardboard pieces for the wheel and the disc brakes, I'm never doing this again: after all, first I had to lug it three kilometers to the hotel, and then another five to the airport. Given its size, you could say it felt like I was carrying a sail, but I'm not a ship! Plus, riding down a night highway holding a box is pretty sketchy.

Looks like I need to switch to a bike bag, no matter how you slice it. It's long been obvious that any hobby tends to grow until it starts sucking resources out of you like a baobab tree from meager African soil, but what can you do. At the end of the day, that's exactly what you wanted — something to pass the time and spend it meaningfully. Bike touring is absolutely no exception here; if you buy all the necessary accessories, you'll soon run out of space to store them, not to mention how much decent gear costs. But trust me, it's worth it: a tent with a floor water resistance of even five thousand millimeters can leak if a large puddle gathers underneath it, let alone one with 2000 or no specs listed at all. My old but wonderful Vaude tent has worn out, and it's time for a new one, but my inner cheapskate is strangling me, considering how rarely I sleep in a tent, and how much I love flying to countries with sunny climates.

Speaking of the latter, deserts suit me perfectly, and so, deciding on my next piece of madness, I bought a ticket to Israel, from where I'll get to Jordan. Waiting for me there are Bedouins whose degree of hospitality is slowly but surely dropping while their greed rises, the ancient rock-hewn city of Petra, and daily sunshine with 20-plus degrees of warmth — just right so I don't roast.

But for now, I'm still telling the story of Cyprus, even though there's very little left. Arriving at the hotel, I didn't really get to rest, as I was suffering from that very heat, which in Cyprus in May had already hit twenty-six degrees. Now, as I write these lines and it's thirty outside, I realize that this kind of temperature is not to my liking at all, and I will try by all means never to visit countries during a season with this hellish oven, or I'll first lose weight down to 75 kg (which is hard to believe).

Loading my stuff onto my trusty donkey, and clumsily grabbing the box, I dragged myself to the airport. At midnight there was no one there except for the rare security guards and cleaners, so I packed the bike unhurriedly and with pleasure. When it was time for departure, yet another snag occurred. The airBaltic cashier informed me that I had to pay for the bike's transport. I'm not the most attentive person in the world, of course, but the probability that I forgot to do this online when packing to go somewhere with a bike tends to zero. After a full day of physical exertion and a week's worth of fatigue, my usual shyness and peacefulness were completely gone. I didn't start yelling and swearing, of course, but I answered the young and pretty cashier rather sharply, like, what the hell? She, clearly used to much more unpleasant situations, asked me for some mysterious bike payment code, to which I told her that I had no idea what that was, where to get it, and anyway, their free airport Wi-Fi wasn't working. After exhausting myself with negotiations, I agreed to pay 60 euros, knowing that I'd be able to get the money back upon arrival.

After paying, the internet suddenly started working, and I found my e-ticket. Naturally, the bike transport was paid for, but when I showed the ticket at the desk, I was told that the mysterious code was still missing from it. This ticked me off quite a bit, because as a consumer, I am absolutely not obligated to know about their inner workings, nor to credit the company with my own money. Alas, I had no choice but to swallow airBaltic's screw-up. The refund process in Latvia dragged out for a long time; they only gave me back the same 60 euros, or instead offered a laughable 70 euro voucher for a future flight. Which I naturally didn't take, and rightfully so, because I'm flying to Israel with Ryanair. Their bike transport costs more, but at least there's one flight at a normal time, and not in the dead of night.

It took them practically 4 months to refund the money, and only after a reminder and a repeated request. In short, I am now in the camp of people dissatisfied with airBaltic's services, even though I understand it's stupid to expect much from a low-cost carrier. On the other hand, I have zero complaints about WizzAir, which I've flown quite often, and their tickets are even cheaper.

Be that as it may, I returned to Latvia early in the morning without further issues, assembled the bike, and dragged myself to the train. For the umpteenth time I realize that a sleepless night means several days of terrible mood and feeling like crap afterwards, but often there are simply no other options — tickets with regular airlines cost astronomical amounts of money, and seeing the world is a worthy goal to suffer for a few days.

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