And Then It Got Interesting

   For those of you following along with us on this adventure, you'll know we've been less than impressed with Cyprus. Until now.

  First, it's been six days without chips and salad. Win! Of course, we haven't set foot in a restaurant since Kate left so we're not home free. We're planning to partake in a fish meze sometime in the next couple of days so we'll likely be hit over the head with the Cypriot staple foods again before we leave.

  Second, the weather warmed up. Yep. We've managed to sleep without heaters for the past four nights. Another win! Temps here in Kallepia have warmed up to the high teens and, in the sun, it's quite pleasant. To boot, we were in Paphos a couple of days ago and I was almost too warm in jeans. Like, what the hell is this? I might have to break out the shorts I packed under the assumption it would be warmish here.

  Third, we did interesting stuff and saw interesting things this week. Now, to be fair, I did spend a fair bit of time feeling miserable over the past couple of weeks so we could have done these things earlier but, I'm fine now and we did the things. Let's go back a couple of days.

  We knew the main archaeological site in Paphos would be more interesting than the Tombs of the Rich Guys we saw two weeks ago and it didn't disappoint. We started with a commonplace sight in Greece and Cyprus as we were entering the site.

  Notice the ruins surrounded by a parking lot and a restaurant. I mean, how blase can you get? "Welcome to the archaeological site. Those ruins? Meh. Look at these ruins! Those ruins weren't good enough for us so we left them out there."

  In we went and, as I said, we weren't disappointed. The major attraction here is the mosaics in, what is called, the House of Dionysus. I say that because there's no evidence Dionysus actually lived there. There's no "For a good time call Dionysus" scrawled on the cistern wall. A roof has been built over the many rooms that were unearthed to protect the amazing scenes contained within. Almost all of the floor spaces are decorated with mosaics depicting mythological characters and telling their stories.

  Now think about this for a bit. This site goes back to the Hellenic Age, around 400 BC. Was it mythology back then or current affairs? Maybe these people were actually hanging around at the time, looking for publicity in order to make them mythological. "Hey Dionysus! How much will it cost to get me into your new floor?" It's also worth considering that this stuff was created twenty-five hundred years ago. I've done a lot of tile work in my time but I was never required to guarantee my work for millennia. I'm not sure I'd have taken that contract.

  Anyway, if you zoom in on those pictures you'll see how tiny the bits of tile are. There's no way to know what kind of effort these scenes would have taken to create but I figure there was a fairly large crew working for many years. Let's try to put it in modern terms. Your average tilesetter earns around $25/hour. Let's say there were a hundred working there and they banged away at it for five years. Now let's do that math, based on an eighty hour work week (no unions back then):

100 guys x $25/hour x 80 hours x 52 weeks x 5 years = $52 million (plus materials)

  Maybe I would quote that job. As I said, impressive. Oh. No building code violations either.

  We moved on to see the rest of the site which is large enough that it took two hours for us to circumnavigate it on foot shortly after we arrived in town. There are many ruins like an old Frankish fort from the same timeframe as the Paphos fort we saw on our first trip to the area.

  Those were the guys who took over from the Ottomans, not a bunch of guys named Frank. History lesson, done.

  We headed over to the old agora and found something rare for Cyprus, marble!

  Unless I've forgotten everything we learned in Athens, I'm gonna say that's a capital from a Corinthian pillar. I know you're impressed with our knowledge of ancient marblework but wait. There's more.

  Now the agora was the ancient marketplace and we haven't seen any evidence of marble during our travels so I'm going to make some broad assumptions. First, a market is a place where many vendors of different types gather to sell their wares. Second, there's no significant stash of marble in Cyprus. Third, there's guys like Dionysus building very impressive structures requiring pillars.

  This is where it gets good. I'm thinking a vendor, let's call him Gus, has a brother-in-law, Gus,  in Athens and a buddy, Gus, who has a ship. He sends one of his pigeons to Gus (the  brother-in-law) asking him to source some marble fixtures he can sell in the agora for an obscene markup, then arranges for them to be brought over on Gus' (buddy) ship. The guy's an astute businessman who probably made it big. Just an educated guess. Also, After Gus (our hero) started his little import business the local pillar industry collapsed, as evidenced by this uncompleted stonework:

  See? History and archaeology. Nothin' to it. I'll be signing autographs later.

  Now, here's a little weirdness people my age still have trouble getting used to. Penny and I are walking around this archaeological site nine thousand kilometers away in Cyprus and my phone pings with a Facebook message. Sarah, our daughter-in-law, suggests it would be a good time to have a video chat with our granddaughter, Nora, when she awakens around 8 am, their time. Sure. We find the odeon and sit down to wait, soaking up some sunshine.

  Think about it for a second. Here we are sitting on the same stone benches where theatre goers sat over two thousand years ago, waiting to start a video chat. Not earth-shattering but still weird. Anyway, it didn't work as Penny's data connection was dead.

  On our way out we stopped at the visitor centre so Penny could pick up a memento of our visit. When she tried to get the attendant's attention she was asked to wait for a minute as "the president is on site." Wait. The president? Of Cyprus? We hadn't seen a motorcade. No security guards with coiled earplug wires running down their jackets locking down the site. No army. No police. I went outside to see if we'd just missed it. Then I saw a Mercedes with flashing lights drive past. Then another. Then an SUV. I waited for the rest. That was it. The SUV wandered around a bit, then left. The first Mercedes disappeared down the road and out of the second one pops the official group:

  The tall, balding guy shielding his eyes is the president, Nikos Christodoulides, and the shorter, gray-haired gentleman is Sergio Mattarella, president of Italy. Oh. There's a couple of security guys with them. All kind of low-key.

  Apparently, Mr. Mattarella was in Cyprus and wanted to see the site so they shoehorned the side trip in before both of them left for EU business the next morning. We were the only bystanders. You can see the plainclothes security guy looking at me as I'm taking the picture. He pulled out an Uzi and fired a few rounds at us but we ducked behind the visitor centre and hid in the ruins. The other ones by the parking lot. Ok. He didn't pull out his Uzi but, if he did, we'd have shown him just how fast Canadians can run.

  With that excitement behind us we rested up for yesterday's excursion to The Mountains. It sounds impressive when it's in italics, doesn't it? How about BOLD UPPER CASE ITALICS? Yeah. Overdone.

  There's a Mount Olympos here in Cyprus. It's not as tall or impressive as the one in Greece (where have we heard this before?) but it was a place we hadn't been to and who can refuse a trip to the TALLEST POINT IN CYPRUS. Ok. I'll stop. Off we went in search of thrills and spills.

  The first thing you need to know about the Troodos Mountains, where Mount Olympos is located, is this is the area where the bronze age in Cyprus began. Copper was everywhere around there and mining took place for a thousand years. Here's a little known fact. This was the only place where copper could be found in the ancient world and it was named cuprus, which was the Roman name for Cyprus. Yes. Copper is named after Cyprus. There. Now you can ace the next pub Trivia Night.

  The other noteworthy thing about Mount Olympos is there's skiing there. Really. We saw the chairlift. Yes. "The". One only. Skiing's not big here but they try.

  We channeled Sir Edmund Hillary and ascended the windy switchbacks to the top of the mountain, because it was there. What did we find when we reached the top? Why, a UK Air Force radar station, of course. Restricted. No photographs. Get lost. This means you. There was a guy there with a gun. Not the same guy but we got outta there just the same, before we ended up locked in a damp house without heat for a month while awaiting a show trial. Or maybe he just said, please. Anyway, down we went.

  Our next stop was to try to get a look at the ancient copper mining area and I picked a spot on the map that looked likely, given it was a mine. Yes, I do have superior deductive skills, thank you. It also happened to be near the Green Line across which lay the evil TRNC. As we approached we saw a number of UN vehicles going the other way, likely responding to the security breach at Mount Olympos.

  When we arrived at the mine we tried to enter the site but encountered yet another armed security guy. Well, not exactly armed. I mean, he did have arms, but he was only holding his lunch. He also asked us to leave. After being told to clear out too many times for one day we decided we'd had enough and left. So there. We did manage to snap this shot of the lonely sentry post next to the barb-wired Green Line:

  There didn't appear to be anyone there as I guess it was a full-on alert at Mount Olympos.

  The remainder of our trip took us to the Troodos Botanical Gardens which, unsurprisingly, didn't have much on display given it's still winter. The gravel was nice though. We also stopped at the local UNESCO geology centre to learn about the local historical mining activities. It overlooks a giant asbestos mine that closed thirty years ago and is in the process of being rehabilitated.

  Now, before you think our Cyprus adventures have come to a close with our leaving Monday, you're in for a treat. Tomorrow we're golfing at the famous Vikla Golf Club. We didn't plan on golfing here as it's not really a thing. There are only five other courses here and they're all associated with resorts or housing developments (read stupid expensive). Vikla isn't. It's cheap. Also, there's no grass there for nine months of the year. Did I mention it's cheap? We may get lucky and find grass as it's not the hot season yet but, if there isn't any they provide a piece of AstroTurf for you to carry around. That way you don't break your clubs on the rocks. We're looking forward to it.

  Until then, fore!