Coast V: Akamas in June
We went back to Akamas after a long drive from Nicosia via Pyrgos and Polis. We drove out to the bay before Cape Lara in our trusty Ford Fiesta. The going was relatively easy but not something you'd want to do in a hurry. Plus there were lots of boy racers around in theri rented 4x4 ands quad bikes.
We parked up and schlepped across the fiercely hot sand and pebble beach. There was surprisingly big swell coming in and we got rumbled through the pebbles by the slam-dunking beach break. It wasn't quite what we had in mind and we drove back towards a calmer stretch of water through alng the dusty track.
The dry hills and cut wheat fields behind the beach looked like something out of the 16th century with their stone shepherd's huts. Wind bent trees and clumps of maquis punctuated the blonde fields. On the point of the bay there is a taverna surrounded by date palms.
Wild verbenea and a compact yellow-flowered milk thistle were growing at the top of the beach.
It looked so different from our visit in February when there were masses of tulips sprouting out of the ground. The dust from the road had stained the beautiful maquis a pallid white. Luckily there were not too many people about and we had another swim and the let the waves push us up the beach.
We gingerly made our way back towards Agios Giorgios and stopped where there was more sand and less swell. We got back into the water and splashed the heat out of our weary bodies. Behind us a metal cage stuck out of the sand. It was guarding a turtle's nest.
There was another further down the beach just above the highest high water mark. There were not many people on the beaches yet but you wondered what chance the turtle's eggs will have when the beaches are crowded.
The beach was pretty tatty with lots of old plastic bottles washed up. It just wasn't the magic place it had been back in February 2011. But it was still pretty good. It's just that the track is used as a racetrack by boyos in 4x4s from Paphos showing off to their mates - great plumes of dust following their high jinks.
And the development from Paphos seems to creep ever closer, a great concrete shell lowering above the beach.
If you stand back from the cliff edge you can still get a picture that suggests the beach is pristine and unpeopled. But step forward and the illusion is shattered. On the other hand it was nice to buy two ice lollies from the Sri Lankan boy staffing a little kiosk and bored out of his head.
