It’s our last day before the trek back. We’re keeping things extremely simple. Breakfast at the same spot as we did the previous days (📍Cera) and have the same winning combo of coffee and pizza. Simple, easy and relaxing.
We then got in the car and drove the half hour to the Avakas Gorge. Well… we drove to the parking next a church about 1km from the start of the gorge trail. There’s a parking closer to the trailhead but it is a dirt road that has seen better days. It had a deep trench in the middle, forcing the few brave souls who went to the trailhead parking to either drive uncomfortably close to a cliff or the cliff wall. One would cost you paint the other probably a car. Neither interested us for some reason. Also, we learned that in AllTrails, when reviews specifically recommend NOT driving somewhere, it’s a good idea to heed that warning.
The trail description essentially says that the first half of the gorge is what most people hike. It gets more technical after that and inexperienced hikers turn back. It was our first hike with enough people that we didn’t feel alone for most of the trek. It’s probably better not to imagine what this place looks like during peak tourism season. The first kilometre is nothing fancy in terms of trail. The recent rain did give us the chance to experience a gorge with water in it instead of the dry river beds we’d been walking through in Crete. There’s at most 2cm at the deepest of the river and it’s narrow enough to go over it in a single step. Some places required a couple of boulders to avoid getting the bottom of our shoes wet. The unique feature (at least for us) was a narrow section where the walls are very close and straight up. We could barely see the sky. That section was gorgeous, but also where there was the most people obviously and after which most people will turn around. I get why it‘s popular: it’s gorgeous (pun intended). The rest of the trail until we got out of the canyon was nothing extravagant. It got hard to follow in spots, forcing me to walk through a wall of thorny vines for a couple of meters. Karine, wiser of the two, backtracked and found the trail and walked to me. Once at the other end of the gorge, we kept going up following a dirt road to the parking at the top of the gorge. From there we kept following the road on the ridge down to the parking at the bottom. We did see a car drive down the same road we walked and I feel for their suspension. It was rough in patches. Nothing for people walking however.
We walked back to our car and drove back to our Airbnb for Apero and dinner at 📍Hondros. We opted of what seems to be a late dinner time for beach front Paphos (20:30). We’ve been constantly been amongst the last to sit at a table and one of the last tables to leave. The place was packed and we had to wait almost half an hour for drinks before ordering dinner—the staff being very busy getting customers’ checks. Like every other place, once the food order is in the food comes out pretty quick and it was good. Best place in Kato Paphos—not that’s it a high bar to clear.
Tomorrow we’re flying back to Athens and catching our long haul back to Canada on Sunday. We’ll be spending the end of our evening getting our bags plane ready.
Places
Cera Paphos · Paphos
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Hondros - The oldest traditional tavern · Paphos
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Avakas Gorge Loop, Paphos, Cyprus - 385 Reviews, Map | AllTrails
Avakas Gorge Loop (Φαράγγι του Άβακα κυκλική) The route starts from the dirt road in the open valley, where the gorge ends to the sea and is directed east. It follows first the gorge and the riverbed of the river Eggs, with the dense vegetation. At the end of the gorge to the east, following a dirt road, it ascends the hilly area and returns along the Pegia State Forest, to the south of the gorge, to the starting point.
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