So There IS A Point To Cyprus

Sunday, September 11, 2011
Konnos Beach, Famagusta, Cyprus
Aside from happy hour cocktails and pissed up chavs, if there's one thing this part of Cyprus knows how to do it's beaches. Beautiful stretches of clean sand and clear, inviting water heated by the epically hot sun to that perfect temperature, not so hot as you can't cool off but not so cold as it'll freak the shit out of your nerve endings when it gets to your tender parts. The beach is a great place to perfect those tan lines and mock guys trying to exit the water like James Bond.

Now, I don't like sand. I believe it is sand’s sole purpose in life to get into as many places it doesn't belong as possible, and if this results in chaffing and that unique walk you tend to adopt when you're trying to dislodge sand from your butt without having a good rummage, sand considers this a bonus. Me and sand have never got on which totally conflicts with my general love of hanging out on the beach.
But where there are package holiday tourists who spend ridiculous amounts of money to fly overseas and bitch about the heat, there are sunbeds and umbrellas for rent which keeps me that extra few inches away from my nemesis. For €2.50 you can get a bed and for another €2.50 you can get an umbrella which you'll insist you'll so totally need before spending the day maneuvering your sunbed out of its shade.

Oh oh oh! And the watersports look awesome an all! Heaps of beaches have them, you can hand over half a day's wages (ok ok, half a day's Cypriot wages) for the privilege of being dragged along by a speed boat, desperately clinging to something inflatable whilst the boat driver does everything he can to dislodge you. It looks like heaps of fun. There are usually jetskis to rent too but again, it'd take me 6 hours to work off a 15 minute rental. I tend to gaze wistfully out over the ocean at the tourists having a blast and sigh.

So one popular beach is Nissi in Ayia Napa. It's where the hot couples, the groups of Brits and Scandinavians on a lads/girls holiday and the Russians come to sleep off their hangovers whilst gorgeous people hand out flyers for that night's pub crawl or club entry.
Thinking of having a couple of beers and a feed whilst chilling out at Nissi? Don't forget to take out that second mortgage, kids. €4 for not-quite-a-pint, €1.90 for a packet of crisps and your first born for a hamburger and chips. But whatever, there's music and ocean and watersports and beautiful people trying to get from their beds to the ocean over the scorching hot sand, employing a waddling technique that makes them look more ridiculous than if they'd just run to the water.

In the Protaras and Pernera areas there are shit loads of beaches to choose from. I work in a tattoo studio in Pernera, about a 5 minute walk from one of the beaches, and here's the thing about package holidaymakers; As soon as they step off the plane, something happens to them. Suddenly it's ok to wear the most ridiculous hats and shorts, and for some reason it becomes perfectly acceptable in their minds to walk down the street in nothing but their swimwear. Erm, because you know there'll be photos, right guys? Do you seriously want to spend the week after you arrive home frantically untagging those photos of you in the Hawaiian shirt and the pink sailor hat, running down the road clutching a blue drink in one hand and brandishing your underwear in the other? I mean, really?

It's not all bad though, you do get the occasional chick who can pull off being half naked in public wandering into the shop in nothing but a bikini. It's at this point I have to scrape my jaw off the floor and my eyes get into a argument with my brain, which is simultaneously trying to keep them on her face whilst trying to bring my saliva glands under control.
What? Nothing wrong with a bit of a perv. A girl's gotta get some kind of compensation for the blokes with a penchant for pies walking past the shop in nothing but Speedos. My retinas are gonna need to be scrubbed with bleach by the end of the season.

But my favourite beach? Konnos Beach. Not only is it just a really fucking nice beach but they rent out these yellow, plastic sunbeds that float. They're awesome but there is absolutely no graceful way to get onto one of these things regardless of whether it's on the sand or in the ocean and you end up spending the day alternating between topping up your tan, rolling into the water to cool off then looking like a twat as you try and scramble back onto your bed without tipping it. Nope, dignity isn't something you pack when you go to the beach, you'd only lose it.

Sun cream however IS something you should pack for the beach, I have the most epic sunburn right now on account of the fact I forgot to put it on before I left home and I can't apply it after I get there because once sand gets on me, no way am I rubbing lotion all over myself. It freaks me out in the same way loose tea leaves in the sink and cous cous are the devil's work. I'm sorry but it's just weird, all those tiny little bits of... stuff... everywhere, and once cous cous gets in your mouth there's no way of getting it all out again and all the bits of tea leaves just get all over the place so fucking quickly and hello digression.

But anyway, I managed to burn my stomach whilst sprawled on the sunbed reading a book so I figured I should burn my back too because if my skin's gonna fall off, dammit, it's gonna be uniform. Fucking ouch, though. Next time I go to the beach I'm taking enough high factor sun cream to make a vampire happy, and a fucking trowel to apply it with.

So yeah, I think I'm finally starting to see the point in Cyprus. Assuming the point is slow-roasting your flesh on the beach whilst drinking beer and checking out chicks.
Other Entries

Photos & Videos

Legacy Video (flv)

Comments

2025-02-18

Comment code: Ask author if the code is blank