Last target for the day, and the most exciting from a birding perspective is the Artemis trail. We have heard a lot about how birds are everywhere on the trail and we are curious to see if that holds true. But first we have to find parking as the parking area is almost full, almost being the important word here. There is one spot left, not an ideal one for our small car but we make do. And then we have to identify the right trail, we start first up a hill before noticing that all the other people go in a different direction and returning to the right trail.
It is a loop trail and we decide to go in the drection that is less popular. Soon we descend below the road into the fog while keeping an eye on another road below that we will be following around the mountain for some time. We are quite high up here, almost on top of the tallest mountain in Cyprus so it is cold and cloudy and there are even snow patches from time to time.
However the birds….yes there are quite a few birds here that we are able to add to our list. We find all three endemic subspecies of birds, short toed Woodcreeper, Coal Tit and Eurasian Jay as well as the now ubiquitous Cyprus Wheatear. We add two more birds to our life list on the walk, the woodcreeper and the European Serin, quite productive for a short walk.
The other goal is to find a few caches along the trail, they are easy find as long as they are not buried in the snow patches.
On the way we pass multiple ski lifts and the only ski “resort” in Cyprus. When we think how southern we are even having a ski resort is a surprise and it seems to be quite popular in season.
The forest itself looks quite haunted with the fog between the Black Pines that seem aligned to scare us. And it is quite cold and windy and in the end we give up about 1/3 of the loop and decide to return to base. At that point the weather becomes good with the sun peeking through the clouds suddenly and the fog dissipates, yep for certain haunted.
One of the reasons we returned to the car is that we are quite hungry. Initially we were hoping to eat at the ski resort but it was closed so now we are driving around trying to find something open. In the end we find an open restaurant near Kakopetria which seems to fit the bill regarding what we are looking for – being able to be served immediately and having some local specialties.
We think a bit regarding what to eat as the menu is quite comprehensive and decide to go with Meze. We have only one more full day in Cyprus so not a lot of chances to try something that is recommended by all guidebooks. In fact we want Meze and another specialty but the server says the Meze is for minimum two people so we are locked in.
In fact it is good we didn’t get more food. While each individual dish in the meze is small they add up together really fast and soon we are quite full while the dishes continue to pile up. We do our best to at least taste from each one – but finishing them is a lost cause. Really full we now drive back to our AirBnB and prepare for the next day when we are going to descend from the mountains towards Paphos.
