Sunday February 5, 2006 – “Vavla” and the “Hard Sell”

To reward those of you who struggled through Saturday’s long-windedness, I’ll try to keep this brief. Our threesome first stopped at Agios Gergios Alamanos, a small monastery whose nuns toil away making honey, dried herbs, and canned fruits. We then went in search of the top three of the top ten most picturesque villages in all of Cyprus (per our Top Ten Cyprus travel guide) – Kalavasos, Tochni, and Valva. Although there wasn’t anything terribly exciting about the town themselves, we stumbled upon wonderful little memories:

a) An abandoned mine which I really had to refrain from running into in a true Indiana Jones fashion. The entrance alone had turned into a creek of orange mine tailings and apart from growing a third ear and an eleventh toe, I would have been a ghastly mess. Our expedition was further hindered by lack of a flashlight.

b) We wandered up the turret of a vacant mosque in Kalavasos for a view of the countryside.

c) In Tochni we had another feast of a lunch at Socrates’ House restaurant. There wasn’t a menu, but we were informed that it was “meze” – a.k.a an assortment of delightful Cypriot dishes. During lunch Kane announced a little too loudly that “Our next stop is the beautiful and lovely Vulva.” Upon erupting in laughter he asked “What, what did I say.” Kane got a very brief English anatomy lesson, and he joined in the laughter.

d) We took the “shortcut” to Vavla on this winding dirt road and learned why the stable we stopped at didn’t allow horseback riding on Sundays as the hills and valleys were riddled with shotgun toting hunters. While we were in Valva, an extremely nice man invited us into his home for a 20 minute tour of a restored old typical village home.

e) We drove into the lace-making village of Lefkara and were unknowingly ushered into a tourist trap. We were directed to the free parking of the Lefkara Lace Cooperative because the “streets were too narrow to drive down.” After being invited in for what we thought would be a quick browse, the “hard sell” began: a lace making demonstration, juice service, a barrage of small talk, presentation of lace available for purchase…followed by the sticker shock ($175 for a small table cloth), Kane’s “OK…thank you…bye bye.”, her look of dissatisfaction and disapproval, a quick dash outside, and hopes that our car would still be there after we finished wandering the village.