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Jan 23

Avakas Gorge in Akamas, Cyprus

adventure, Akamas, cyprus, paphos, top, trek, walk 3 Comments »

Sometimes referred to as Avagas Gorge, it is one of the few accessible gorges in Cyprus. This gorge, formed over millions of years due to the action of the flowing river, is at the start of the Akamas area and is easily accessible even with a regular car. It is a beautiful place to visit, especially in the earlier or the later part of the day, when the light is magical, inside the gorge.

We (I and Vidhya) first went to Avakas Gorge more than 5 years ago, when we went on our own to explore Paphos with just a guide book in hand. It was tough to find Avakas Gorge then, because the guide book didn’t have any kind of directions. We went to many villages where people couldn’t understand Avakas or Avagas (leave alone Gorge!). Then, we showed the photograph of the gorge to few villagers who gave us the directions.

From Coral Bay, keep driving towards Akamas. You will also see signs for the Pafos Bird and Animal Park (which i shall write abt in another post). At one point, the sign for Akamas is towards a road on the right. Take this right turn (until then, you would have driven straight only). The road is paved for around a 100 metres, then it becomes a earthern road (which is quite ok to drive on). You need to travel for around a kilometre on this road until you start seeing the vast expanses of the Akamas Coast on your left. Then you will come to a place where the “road” widens and looks like the first image below. On the right, you will also see a stone marked “Viklari, the marked castle”, actually an restaurant (i guess so, never been there). The road to the right takes you to Avakas Gorge.

Avakas gorge Paphos Cyprus

Avakas gorge Paphos Cyprus The road to the right looks bad, but is accessible to ordinary cars, though a bit tricky at times with one side being a steep drop to the canyon floor. That is me, guiding a friend through the rocky terrain. But, things have improved over the past few years maybe because of the running of E4, the European long distance trail close to Avakas. The road condition is still the same, but there is a parking lot near the start of the walk with picnic benches and running water. But, it is good that the roads have not been paved because it is this remoteness which adds to the beauty of this place. From the parking lot, it is around a 30 minute walk to the gorge.

Avakas gorge Paphos Cyprus

The first time we went to Avakas, we walked for around 20-25 minutes and didn’t see anything resembling a gorge. We saw a couple coming back and asked them about it. They said that they had been another 100 metres, but didn’t see anything and hgence were walking back. But, we decided to press on. We didn’t drive over a 100 kilometres from limassol for nothing. At probably the 110th metre, the gorge started!

If you are going in winter/spring, be ready to walk in flowing water, as the gorge is actually a river and when we went there few weeks back, it was quite slushy in places and we had to do quite a bit of jumping around in order to save our shoes from the water.

Avakas gorge Paphos Cyprus

The evening sunlight and the spring colours gave some very good photo ops.

Avakas gorge Paphos Cyprus

The brave have lot of opportunities to get adventurous and try their rock climbing skills on the steep slopes of the gorge.

Avakas gorge Paphos Cyprus

Once you enter the gorge, the light reduces drastically and it can get a bit cold too. The highlight of the gorge is a huge stone stuck between the walls of the gorge. This is the place which is often photographed and shown whenever Avakas gorge is referred to. The photos below are of the same place during various trips (different seasons, different times of the day with no manipulations of the photo) and you can see the effect of the light in these photos.

Avakas gorge Paphos Cyprus

Though the walk is actually only about a 30 minutes, we spent almost 2 hours as we stopped at every possible photo opportunity.

Avakas gorge Paphos Cyprus

From avakas gorge, only a short drive away is the famous lara beach. Lara Bay is famous for its nestling turtles (though I haven’t seen any of them). It is a big sandy beach, in contrast to the beaches in limassol and paphos.

Technorati Tags: cyprus avakas gorge avagas gorge paphos pafos cyprus adventure cyprus trek walk trail

written by Rajaram S

Dec 27

Saint Hilarion Castle in North Cyprus

adventure, cyprus, top, trek, Turkey No Comments »

Also referred to as the snow white castle, this castle is built on a rocky ledge on top of the mountain overlooking the Kyrenia harbour. If you are visiting North Cyprus, then a climb up to to the top of this castle is a must.

Read more details on the St Hilarion page and also get more details on places to visit in North Cyprus on the North Cyprus travelogue page.

written by Rajaram S

Nov 26

There is snow on troodos!

adventure, top, trek, troodos No Comments »

UPDATE(JAN 30th 2008): There is LOT of snow on troodos, to the extent that the sun-facing side of troodos (towards limassol) is full of snow. It is even visible from Limassol. Btw, it also snowed in limassol, something of a rarity!

at least, that is what the pictures of the Ski Cam on Zeus slope on Troodos are showing. But, it is too early in the winter for heavy snow and in all probability, you should be seeing only dirty snow now on troodos.

But, these are good signs for things to come. The amount of snow falling troodos has been steadily reducing over the past few years and the duration for which there is snow is also reducing. So, if we have early snow this time, lets hope that we have snow on troodos during Christmas.

Lots of snow means that you can do a lot of things: Make a snowman – a lifelike one, not the two lumps of snows you usually see, arrange a snow trek to Kalidonia waterfalls or just fool around on the snow!

written by Rajaram S

Jul 20

A Trip to Kelefos Bridge

cyprus, picnic, spring-in-cyprus, top, trek, troodos, walk 8 Comments »

Kelefos Bridge is the most famous of the still remaining medieval bridges in Cyprus. The other two in the same area are the Elia and Roudia bridges. I have been to this numerous times in various seasons and it had always been a nice visit.

To go to Kelefos bridge, this is the route to take:

From the highway, take the troodos exit and go towards troodos.
After around 20 kms, you will come to the village of trimlikini.
Immediately after Trimlikini, you will come across a junction where there are roads going to various other villages to the right and left. You have to take left where the signs point towards Mandria and Omodos Monastery.
Proceed towards Mandria on the same road. Just after Mandria, you will see many exits. Don’t go towards Omodos/Platres. Take the turn towards Ayios Nikolas/Pafos.
After this turn, the road is pretty narrow and single-laned. You have to drive for at least 15-20 minutes to reach Ayios Nikolas.
Just when you enter Ayios Nikolas, you will see a brown board pointing the turn towards the right for Kelefos Bridge.
You have to travel for around 6 kms on this earthen road to reach the bridge.

I had always wanted to take decent photographs of the crabs in this river. This time, i took my 70-300 lens and got some pretty ok shots. This place is also good for a picnic with few seats available at the banks of the river. We also did a river-walk, i.e. we walked on the river (as it is just over a feet deep) upstream for more than 1.5 hours. This was a very interesting trip. More about that in a later post. Enjoy the photos.

The photo below was very challenging to take as the insect was skipping around very fast on the water and it was difficult to get a proper focus on the insect. The one below is the best from almost a dozen attempts.

I am very happy with the photos of the crab below, considering the fact that the water was pretty murky and the crab was at least 10-15 cms inside the water. Had to use manual focus with a flash for these shots.