Days 221-227 | Larnaka, Cyprus week 1 | 27 July-2 August 2017

Thursday

The alarm rings out at 4:30am. It sounds like an incoming call. But it’s not. We scramble about in the dark, preferring not to turn on the lights and ruin the quiet and peaceful darkness of the dorm house.

Steve has organised a taxi to drive us and all our luggage to the airport at this ungodly hour. It costs more than the usual taxi fare – 53 euros for six people – but it’s worth it. We don’t want to try and find blue petit taxis and miss our flight especially when there is an investment of six airline tickets on the line.

Our taxi arrives earlier than expected. So we’re off to a good start. We depart the dorm house as quietly as possible and load our luggage into the back of the van. The sun is yet to show itself, so it’s dark and the nightly fog is still hanging in the air. As we drive away from the dorm house and on the right hand side we glance out the van window and see that the stallions are still tethered outside the tents. And then we are on the freeway heading to Casablanca’s Mohammad V International airport to our next destination.

Goodbye mysterious Morocco. We are very keen on returning to see more of this amazing country. I heard that the girls chatting to some of the volunteers the other day and they are already planning their trip back to the British Language Academy when they’re old enough to do so on their own.

Steve has done many hours of searching for tickets to get us to Cyprus. The reason it’s been troublesome is due to a combination of things: peak tourist season in Europe and we require six plane tickets. There’s not many flight options available at a reasonable price for six people at this late stage of booking. But he did find them with one short stopover in Brussels. This is what our big travel day from Casablanca to Cyprus looks like:

• Casablanca to Brussels: flight time is 3 hours 15 minutes
• Brussels stopover: 2 hours 50 minutes (no transfer forward of luggage to next carrier so it’s luggage collection and a completely new check in and customs process again)
• Brussels to Cyprus: flight time 4 hours 10 minutes.

The entire journey, including flying time as well as luggage collection and re-check in and customs processing is straight forward. I’m amazed actually. And happy about that one. No delays or issues. And as Steve and I relax on the final flying leg high above the European continent and order a white wine and cold beer we’re told by the Captain that we are currently travelling 1,000 km/h with an outside temperature of -50 degrees Celsius.

We start chatting about how we could possible keep this long term travel thing going beyond the year. It’s an extreme idea we know, but so too is the idea that this plane is in the air travelling at this speed! So anything is possible right? Then we noticed a funny thing with the girls’ plane tickets from Brussels to Cyprus – their seat numbers corresponded to their the first letter in their names. So Ash has 23A, Billie has 23B, Charlie is 23C, and Dacey is 23D. How extraordinary is that one!?

We land earlier than anticipated and move through customs efficiently. The kids grab all of our items of luggage off the carousel and before we know it we are walking out the gates to Cyprus. Steve organised a taxi to collect us at the airport and there’s a man holding a piece of paper that hangs over the railing with the name Stephen Cole written on it. Our burly driver Daniel, originally from Bulgaria, is waiting for us.

Steve sits in the front with Daniel. There’s something weird about this van – it’s back to left hand driving! We’re back to what we’re used to in Australia. Steve strikes up a typical conversation with Daniel – where he’s from, originally from Bulgaria, and how long he’s been here in Cyprus. We discover an interesting story. Daniel has been living and working in Cyprus for 15 years. He has strong opinions about a number of political and social issues. For instance, he tells us that thinks Americans are criminals, calling them terrorists. He also mentions about how hard it was living and surviving in Bulgaria especially when all the manufacturing plants were being shut down and relocated to other countries. The one factory he kept mentioning was a CD manufacturing plant and when they moved their office and factory over to Asia it created havoc on the workers and their families. There was no work, no money and therefore no food.

Steve asks what he thinks of Trump, and Daniel replies with a solemn, “he’s a clown”; Putin “he’s looking after his country”; Gorbachev “fool and did nothing.” We arrive to our accommodation by 9pm and it’s dark. The apartment block is called Sunrise Beach Court and is labelled with cursive lettering out the front on the building. It’s an extremely balmy night, not a breath of cool, fresh air. We unload the luggage and go to the doorbell and push the button marked apartment 304.

At this point the entire journey from Berrechid, Morocco at 4:30am in the morning until now in Larnaka, Cyprus at 9:00pm at night has been very straight forward. No delays. No dramas. No hassles.

But that is all about to change right now.

No one answers the buzzer and no one opens the door for apartment 304.

We don’t have a local sim yet, so no internet or calling ability. Steve asks the driver Daniel if he would mind calling the number our host has provided while he’s still here with us. We are expecting the apartment owner’s father to be here at the apartment to let us in. He is meant to be meeting us here. Daniel calls the number Steve was given and a woman answers the call. Daniel hands the phone over to Steve and the woman tells him she’s asleep and then hangs up on him. Daniel calls the number again and it’s not picked up. Hmmm…

An elderly man who lives in an apartment on the second level is peering out over his balcony and down at us on the ground outside. We start to have a conversation with him asking if he knows if anyone is in room 304. Daniel speaks Cypriot with him but the man knows nothing. We have piled our luggage in the middle of the apartment block parking pavement and the girls sit down amongst it defeated. Daniel then receives a text message that reads don’t contact this number again. Something just isn’t adding up here. Memories of Tangier come flooding back and I’m wondering if this is also another fake Airbnb account. But it can’t be with all the previous communication between the owner and Steve.

The man on the balcony is informing us from above that we all won’t fit into the apartment anyway as it’s only a two-bedroom apartment. We already know this information but thank him anyway.

It’s dark and it’s hot.

We have no local sim.

We are tired and physically drained.

We need a solution pretty quickly to this current set of circumstances.

Then another wiry and tanned elderly man appears before us. He is taking a walk around the street and sees that we are a large family with a pile of luggage and no home. He enquires about us and chats to Daniel. He lives just around the corner. Steve gets entry into the apartment block as an Asian woman exits out of the block. He catches the lift up and goes to apartment 304 and knocks on the door. But there no answer. He returns to the ground. We feel abandoned.

Our driver Daniel needs to depart as he has more work to do tonight. We thank him for all of his assistance and staying back to try and work this puzzle out. We wave him goodbye and we are left with the local and kind elderly man who is more than happy to help. So he leads Steve around the corner in search of internet so we can make contact with the host. The girls and I sit amongst out luggage and wait on the pavement playing with a local kitten who has taken a liking to our family. This feels like the good old backpacking days with no internet and no instant connection and no accommodation. But we’re not in the good old backpacking days. We are in the era of constant connection and Airbnb for goodness sake!

We are not happy. The girls are not impressed. Everyone is dog tired.

Then we hear shouting. It’s coming from another apartment building across the road. The silhouette of a man with a man bun is shouting and swearing and throwing things around in the apartment. It goes on and on. It’s a bit unsettling. Is it a domestic violence incidence? The girls can hear him say “stop lying to me” and then he appears on his balcony holding an upright fan and throws it off the balcony down on the pavement near the garbage bins below. Crash and bang.

The helpful elderly man returns to us and suggests I follow him to see where he lives in case we need somewhere to sit. I follow and he is kind enough to leave the outside light on and he’s invited us to use his outdoor table and chairs if needed. He needs to go out and meet his sister for ice-cream. I thank him and return to the girls.

Steve reappears and has finally gotten in touch with the host who says his father (let’s just call him Father throughout this story) is coming over to let us into the apartment now. Steve connected to wifi at a restaurant around the corner of the apartment but it’s on the blink and had to reboot ie. turn it on and off three times to get connection. The owner of the restaurant says that there’s a major soccer match on tonight and everyone is on in Cyprus which just jams the system. But he got enough to send and receive a message on Messenger. Father will be there in 15 minutes. We return to Sunrise Beach Court and sit on the pavement, totally disgruntled and disappointed and disengaged from each other, and wait in the dark for the host’s father to arrive.

Father arrives and pulls his car up beside us. We’re grim faced and he doesn’t know how we’ve had to hold back from tearing him apart. As soon as he gets out and faces us he’s saying sorry. It’s a good start. Steve has his hands on his hips (now that’s his sign he’s not at all impressed with the situation) and is letting Father know we’re not one bit happy with this situation – that we’ve been waiting for over an hour outside here and we called and were hung up on. And we’re tired…did I mention that already?

Father’s response: it’s alright now. Really? Steve continues letting him know the level of our unhappiness and continues telling Father about making the call to Father’s phone number and a woman answering and being told NOT to call this number. Our host said you’d be here. Father’s response: sorry my sister not speak English well (like not at all I’d say!) and I was sleeping.

We get up and start moving our luggage towards the main entrance to the apartment block. The war is over and we have a home to go to.

However, Father cannot access the front door with the set of keys that he’s got. This is starting to really not add up. He enters from the back door and we head up in the small lift in bunch of threes. We come to the apartment and instantly realise it’s a little smaller than we realised from the online photos on Airbnb. Two bedrooms with double beds, a bathroom, a small balcony, and a combined kitchen-lounge. We are sleeping on a foldout mattress from the couch but it looks like a very tight fit with the rest of the furniture in here.

But I decide that I’m not saying or assuming anything until I have had a good night’s sleep because everything right now just feels like a Greek tragedy (pun intended).

I look at the bright side – at least there’s plenty of crockery, glassware and nice fluffy towels.

With a roof over our heads, we realise how hungry we all are right now. It’s that kind of tired hunger that gnaws at your insides from a long day of really doing nothing but travelling great distances. Travellers will understand this feeling. We must eat even though we really need to lie down and go to sleep. Unfortunately it’s after 10pm and the restaurant around the corner that Steve went to get wifi and contact our host closed at 10pm. We walk around to see for ourselves and it’s unfortunately true. So we walk to the main road and then towards the main city area passing expensive restaurants along the way.

And finally we arrive at a relaxed restaurant-café after walking along the promenade around the lit up fort and past the flashy restaurants. And we find something that suits our family offering great Cypriot meals for between 4 to 10 euros. Perfect. And a bar. Even better! We sit and enjoy moussaka, kebabs, and dips with a beer and wine. Cheers to the Cole family – we’ve made it to the next destination without losing our marbles! The waiter Nicolas is very helpful and we enjoy having a chat with him about our most recent dramas but prefer to talk about tasty food and what’s the best to order here.

But we have survived and we are here. Eating Grandma’s traditional recipe of homemade moussaka proves this.

Welcome to Cyprus Six Backpacks.

Friday

Good morning very warm beach going weather!

All I can say is thank goodness we have air conditioning in each bedroom and also the lounge room. If the small unit is hot and stuffy, then step outside to this hot and quite humid climate. It just takes our breath away and knocks us for a six! And although Morocco was hotter than Cyprus, and we lived there without air conditioning, at least the night air cooled considerably and was such a relief. But here in Cyprus the air remains hot throughout the day and into the night and so there’s no relief from the heat or humidity.

Here’s the view we enjoy on our small balcony. The planes come in right near us as the airport is close by to Makenzy beach. There is one large new building being constructed as well. But overall Larnaka/Larnaca is a very relaxed beach side place to live and enjoy a holiday.

Saturday

I’m doing quite a bit of catching up and pushing out previous week’s posts on Berrechid and Moments of Morocco. There’s lots and lots of writing and formatting happening as well as downloading photos and fixing them up in Lightroom. This blogging game is a really slow slog. But I’m up for the challenge to keep writing about our year away experiences for 365 days.

We go for a swim at lunch time. It’s way too hot at this time of day. There’s no one out and about because it’s too hot! Oh except the people frying their lovely skin on the beaches. Many of the locals shut shop and enjoy a siesta mid-afternoon until it cools down to do anything. I think that’s a bloody good idea for our family too.

When we return we discover that there is no running water in our apartment. We contact Father and he comes around to work out the problem. We can’t work out why our experience here seems to be full of misadventure one after the other. The water problem gets fixed. How that happened has to do with the previous apartment owners. They used to pay an elderly English man, who also lives in one of the apartments here, to turn the water tap on the roof on and off when they flew for holidays from England. But the problem lies with the previous owners of the apartment not updating the quasi security-maintenance man that it has been sold to new owners!

We also ask for a spare set of keys so we can have more freedom coming and going and also Steve and I do not have any pillows for the fold out couch. Other than that things are looking up. We are still immensely tired from the marathon journey here but we have time on our side. So no need to get flustered just yet! Off to have a swim instead.

There’s a marina near where we take a swim at our little beach. It’s full of fishing boats and nets. And behind the main beach, on a walk I went on at sunset old and disused boats.

Sunday

Steve and I leave the kids sleeping in the apartment this morning and head down to Makenzy beach for a swim together. The Mediterranean water is like one big warm bath and it’s so still today that while walking out the surface looks more like a dark oil slick. There’s no squirming from the coldness on the back or crashing waves knocking us about – it’s completely still. Although I do miss the ruggedness of that kind of beach, this Mediterranean experience is much more gentle and relaxing. It’s a welcome change. And of course we no longer need to be covering our bodies up with clothes and scarves when we venture outdoors. The freedom of this in Cyprus is also welcome.

We return to the apartment after a quick dip but none of the kids are awake yet. We keep ringing the buzzer downstairs that needs to be answered in the apartment but there’s no answer. So we decide to walk back to the promenade and enjoy breakfast out. We sit right on the foreshore at a restaurant-cafe and order eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, mushrooms and tomato with toast. Delightfully fulfilling.

At breakfast we start chatting about the next destination. All we know is that we really want to head back to Asia. It feels like we have not been in Asia forever and we can’t wait to get back. Steve and I came up with an idea on the plane coming over here and since landing I have been researching extensively. So here’s the next possible instalment in our travel plans:

Hoi’An, Vietnam!

Yup we’re going back to where it all started five years ago. We are looking at renting a house for a month and getting into the expat groove there. I contacted an Aussie friend we met there five years ago who started the Dingo Deli cafe with her hubby and pressed the send button on Messenger hoping she’d respond. And soon enough Michele got back to me within a day and answered all of my questions about living in Hoi’An.

So this is what we’re looking for.

A place that gives us a simple life but has plenty to do like exploring, swimming, fresh food, friendly locals and an expat community, affordable accommodation, and a social life for the kids. We really need to find a place in this world where the girls can have friends (other than at home), where the girls can hang out with other kids their own ages. I’ve discovered there’s a Green Shoots school located in Hoi’An and Michele has given me contacts of teachers and people who tutor her children. So now I’m also chatting with a teacher in Hoi’An who is happy to assist Ash and Dacey with their school work for some Dong. It would be an opportunity to structure the day more for these two so we don’t have the continued frustration and delays through not wanting to listen to their supervisor.

There’s some resisting going on about doing school work. It’s obviously clear who is loving the learning freedom and who isn’t quite there yet. Charlie and Billie and relishing the style of learning that Distance Education offers – self-directed, self-managed and self-organised. They’re exceptionally “on top” of all of their school work and submissions. And if they’re not they are at least in constant communication with teachers on the other side of the world to let them know when they will be. So it’s fairly straight forward with those two and they just update me on what they’re up to and if they need anything from me. It works really well for both sides.

But then there’s Ash and Dacey. Who are also doing well with all their Distance Education school work and submissions, but their approach and method of study is less self-directed, self-managed and self-organised. This creates much angst and frustration for the “supervisors” aka Steve and me. I’ve forgotten how many times I’ve either sacked myself from the role or been sacked by the student! So the thought of having a teacher that can assist, oversee and structure their school activities and one which will take Steve and me out of that equation could actually benefit the happiness and longevity of the entire family! Just saying…

We go out for dinner, enjoy the sunset and an ice cream on the walk back to our apartment. Dinners are varied and very tasty. Here they love the large cubed meat of pork. So Billie is thoroughly enjoying pork kebabs with salad in a pita bread. There’s calamari, lightly barbequed octopus, grilled halloumi cheese (OMG! This is the best!) and a range of pastas. The meals at many of the restaurants are normally under the 10 euros mark each; others for as little as 4 euros. But the cost of eating out quickly adds up when there are six people to buy for each night. Next week we make it a priority to get back into making our own dinners in the apartment and enjoy the cuisine on offer over the weekends.

Ash isn’t overly happy again. She won’t come to the beach. She won’t wear shorts. She won’t, she won’t, she won’t. It always takes Ash a little longer than the rest of the girls to adjust to moving to a new country and living arrangements there. She tells me that every time she moves she feels homesick and she just can’t shake it off.

The Vietnam idea is gaining traction with the girls. I have been messaging many people currently living in Hoi’An and neighbouring areas like Da Nang and asking loads of questions. The more I ask the more friends I seem to be making there! I’m in the process of discovering the best suburbs to rent a house in Hoi’An. I’ve seen a three-bedroom house for rent at 12,500,000 Dong/US$550 (or A$693) per month. We definitely need three bedrooms as this apartment in Cyprus – two bedrooms with a fold out couch bed in a small lounge area is not the ideal way for our long term travelling and studying family.

We’re still trying to catch up with our sleep with the aim of getting up earlier and starting school earlier as well. So that by lunch time or thereabouts we all have the afternoon free to do as we like. But this routine, although it sounds straight forward on paper or in my head, is a lot harder to implement than one thinks with teenage kids.

Monday

It’s an off day today amongst this travelling tribe. So reader be warned.

It starts with Charlie and Ash waking with red bite marks all over their legs and some on their torso. They’re itchy and there are plenty of them. So it looks like we have a bed bug problem with one particular room as no one else has got them. There are no mosquitos here either. I’ve never had to deal with bed bugs, just heard about them from people who have. I think mattresses are a common home for them.

Another email to the owner; another issue with the apartment. It’s starting to get a little too much. We’ve not had any problems like this, well other than being involved in an Airbnb scam in Tangier, Morocco.

Problem 1: the host/host’s designated person didn’t meet us at the apartment as agreed.

Problem 2: water to the apartment stopped working one night.

Problem 3: suspected case of bed bugs in one of the bedrooms.

Isn’t three chances and you’re out?

The owner of the apartment, Udi replies to Steve’s email suggesting they’re mozzies. But we know they’re not. He informs us that the whole apartment was sprayed prior to us arriving, so there should not be any bugs in the apartment. Meanwhile I start the process of stripping the entire double bed and washing the sheets in the washing machine turned to hot cycle. Then Udi suggests that maybe we brought them – bed bugs – with us from Morocco as they’re common from there. Ha! What nerve. Um no we have never experienced this before, even if we were living amongst cockroaches in the Berrechid dorm house.

Udi tells Steve that he will send a mattress man over to swap the mattress. We find out that the mattress is not new, it’s second hand. I now know we have bed bugs. So we wait most of the morning for this man to turn up and swap the mattress. The mattress man comes to the apartment and tries to work out the problem. We finally get there and he disappears and brings a new mattress up the lift. Another wash goes into the machine.

Once this is complete, Steve and Billie take a walk to check out the local gym. The girls are very keen to get back into the gym and get moving. They have all been enjoying the fine food without moving enough so the kilos are stacking on. And with the heat outside and female cultural restrictions we lived through in Morocco for a month, the kids have found it hard to get motivated to do their own workout. Steve and Billie return with registration forms. It’s a great gym and not too far to walk to. Everyone happy. For one month 35 euros each.

While they were working out gym memberships, I was online asking the Worldschooling Facebook travel community if there were any recommendations on scuba diving companies here on the island of Cyprus. Ash has shown some interest in undertaking this and right now I’ll do anything to get her out and about and interested in something other than her device and her longing to be back home with her friends.

A woman called Sheila responds and that she has a friend in Larnaka who might be able to teach teens scuba diving. This starts a conversation between us and she invites us to come along to a home schooling meet up on Makenzy Beach tomorrow at 4pm. Sheila is originally from the US and her husband Germany have six children. They have lived in Cyprus for 8.5 years and actually had their youngest child here. So it will be a great opportunity to get to know another travelling family. I hope the kids connect and have some kid fun together at the beach.

But right now everyone is sick of everyone. Whenever we move to another country we have a period of time – up to a week – of readjusting to a new life in a new country. It’s quite hard at times as there are six of us and some are better at this adjustment and change than others. But overall every time we leave one country we are relinquishing much of the learned-through-experience travel capital we have accumulated. This means leaving our expert status of that place behind and starting at beginner stage or “learner” once again. All the time we have poured into getting to know people on the ground, where the best shops are for food and water (and chocolate!), understanding the local customs and cultures, growing confident with saying the basics in another language like hello, goodbye, thank you. Plus, we leave a routine we are all used to behind. At times if we think about it too much, it can feel devastating like leaving home again. But in reality it’s our zone of comfort becoming normalised. Each move disrupts this comfort zone.

So coming to Cyprus might sound easy peasy, but each and every time we depart one country for another there’s always a high degree of grumpiness and days I wish we didn’t have to endure together. So these first few days here have been exactly this type of theme:

• No one wants to do their school work
• No one wants to go outside to explore a new country
• No one can be bothered helping us go shopping
• No one wants to be near anyone else in the family
• No one wants to listen to reason or common sense
• And everyone starts ganging up on the parents!

It’s an interesting adjustment phase to say the least. On the one hand we mourn what we have left behind and on the other we welcome (well try to welcome and embrace) a new phase in our traveling year away.

Steve and I leave to go hunting for a printer and a pharmacy. I know quite an odd combination. We need to print out the next 10-day English and Maths workbooks for Dacey and find some anti-itching cream for Charlie and Ash’s bed bug bites. All I know is that I’m happy to be out and about with my camera again. We wander all the way up to town, find an old printing shop and get the printing complete, then wander to the shop and beach area of Finikoudes. Here they have McDonalds, and the whole ugly range of fast food chains lining the foreshore strip, plus hundreds of umbrellas and relaxing chairs on the beach, as well as funky beach cafes and huts. The place seems to be full of Russians on this very hot 38-degree day.

Steve and I find a quieter place to sit and enjoy a Cypriot signature dish called Sheftalia. Grilled pork sausages in a lightly toasted pita bread with a large helping of diced tomato, cucumber, onion and parsley. We share the meal as every meal served here is enormous and we will all be overweight within weeks if we don’t! The restaurant we sit at has a large green area where patrons can sit outside under the canopy of shade formed from an old Bougainvillea tree. It is a beautiful escape.

We do some errands while we’re in town – a visit to the supermarket, butcher, and beach shop to purchase a beach bat and ball. A ginormous Russian man comes out of his shop with just a pair of black shorts on to tells us the price of the inflatable beach balls hanging outside his shop. His shoulders are broad and slope down life a smooth brown ski slope. None of the Russian shop keepers, male or female, let on that they are ever happy. There’s no smiling or pleasant exchanges. Oh except for Natarsha, who calls herself Natalie to guests (who knows why?) who served us at the restaurant under the Bougainvillea. Steve asked her why none of the Russian smile and she says it’s because of the way they’re brought up: the cold and harsh environment of Russia. “But you smile!” he responds. And she says that because she’s at work. Not quite a definitive answer, but many of the Russians don’t come across as happy go lucky people.

Steve, Ash and Billie head off to the local gym at 5pm. Charlie stays back at the apartment to catch up on her school work, while Dacey and I walk down to the beach for a dip. I can completely understand why the Europeans who frequent holiday destinations with the Mediterranean Sea by its side have a dislike of the cold and ferocious Atlantic Ocean. The Mediterranean Sea is like a large sea of bath water – warm and inviting compared to the Atlantic.

Steve comes down to the beach after gym and has a swim with Dacey. Ash and Billie are tired and prefer walking back to the apartment to have a shower. Charlie comes down to the beach and dips in too. It’s great being able to walk around freely again and not have to worry about men looking the girls or silly young boys throwing stones and swearing at them. Everyone is starting to enjoy their new found freedom here in very relaxed Cyprus.

Tuesday

We make a much better start to the day today. The girls are productive with their school work and that comes without any arguments or whinging. What’s happened? I’m not sure but I’m happily going with the flow.

Good news is that there are no more signs of bed bugs on Charlie or Ash. So the swapping of the mattress yesterday was the right move. We were fortunate that our host was open to changing the mattress and acting quickly for us.

At 4pm today we catch up with the US-German home schooling family down at McKenzy Beach for an afternoon of swimming and playing. It’s a great couple of hours sitting on the beach and chatting with other adults! The kids are off swimming and playing, and Steve takes Billie and Dacey to the gym while I sit and enjoy the conversation with Sheila, Vern her husband and another homeschooling friend from Nemma.

We grab dinner at our little café around the corner from our aprtment. It’s so delightfully convenient in terms of location as well as yummy food. I can never go past the halloumi pita and salad while the kids love the pork kebab in pita. Dacey tries the spaghetti and her bowl is licked clean! Must be good. The street cats are lounging on the concrete floor under our table, the large fans erected on the fence are on maximum speed and we enjoy our little oasis under the old olive trees. I think we are finally finding the Cyprus groove.

Wednesday

That is until this morning. Charlie is not feeling well at all. She has a really high temperature and looks absolutely terrible. She had a bad night’s sleep with a bit of coughing and being completely uncomfortable with the fever like symptoms. So she spends most of the morning in her bedroom trying to catch up on her missed overnight sleep with some Panadol in her system while the rest of the crew complete their school work out in the lounge room.

Steve walks down town to buy some groceries for dinner and get more pain relief for Charlie at the pharmacy to try and alleviate her temperature throughout the night.

I’ve been cooped up inside all day, so later on in the afternoon I decide to walk to the Kamares Aqueduct. The aqueduct was built in Roman style in 1746 by the Turkish governor of Larnaka, Bekir Pasha, who funded it out of his own sources to carry water to Larnaka from a source about 10km away. The aqueduct was abandoned in 1939 and replaced by modern pipes. There are three ruins or sections of the aqueduct and in total spanned 75 arches. Where I come to is the longest stretch. It’s 5km away from our apartment and I think that sounds like a good walk. So I set off with Google maps and walk all the way to see the historic aqueduct at sunset. It takes me an hour to reach the aqueduct and it’s glorious. The lighting is golden perfect for my photos. I walk up close to the 18^th Century stone archways and they’re almost perfectly balanced and symmetrical when looking up from underneath them. I’m in awe at how this was the way towns would have access to water by transporting water down these beautiful bridge look a like structures.

It’s such a grand structure and was obviously built to last. The golden sun’s rays reflect on the stonework and it’s a lovely sight to stand here and just grasp at its magnificence. I have a long walk back into town so I take my photos and walk around and under the aqueduct before the sun fully disappears behind the mountain range in the distance. I snap away at the views, and can see the outline of blades from wind turbines lined up on the mountains in the setting golden light. Pinching myself again.

I return from this mammoth walk just before 9pm and Steve has cooked a lovely dinner – cubed pork pieces with red and yellow peppers placed inside pita bread. He is mimicking the best restaurants out there! It’s very enjoyable especially after just completing a round 10km walk to the aqueduct and back. I will definitely sleep soundly tonight.

But unfortunately for Charlie her fever keeps her, and me, up for most of the night.