Machairas Valley is situated circa 40 km away from Nicosia. Early in October, I spent the best weekend so far here in Cyprus, walking for more than 50km in the middle of the nature, switching off my phone, camping at the Kionia Picnic Site, partying a little bit with people I met that day, and on Sunday waking up to see the sunrise and start walking again to get back to the starting point.
It all started one day meeting a guy while doing indoor rock climb who invited me to join this informal hiking group on Facebook, telling me that it was run by young people who often organize hikes after the summer period. A group that started via word of mouth from a couple of guys who used to go hiking together, before the pandemic, to train for the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, and got bigger and bigger after each trek. I joined them weeks ago for a first simple walk of only 10 km. The following week the organizer wrote to me that he wanted to organize a 50 km walk that he had never done before and asked if I would have participated. Of course, the answer was yes.
We left on Saturday with a group 20, there were two mountain guides among us. We walked for 25 km along rough tracks, paths, and other trails that were created on the spot to shorten the route a bit. At the sunset we arrived at the campsite, we were exhausted. I cannot really describe the joy that comes from taking off your shoes after kilometers of walking with your backpack on your shoulders, but it is immense, the physical tiredness vanishes, I just wanted to enjoy and celebrate that moment with the people with whom we shared a wonderful day, with whom we inevitably found ourselves sharing things about ourselves, and also having a few informal lessons of Cypriot dialect.
We celebrated, rested enough to regain our strength, the morning after the dawn, and we started again. There were seven of us left to complete the journey. On Sunday we passed by the Machairas Monastery, where I was narrated about the statue in the backyard of Grigoris Afxentiou, a leader of the 1950s partisan resistance against the British colonial government.
From there we continued, instead from the road, along the bed of an almost dry creek, until we came to a point where we could not go over because there was a small waterfall at the bottom of a valley and to cross it we would have had to swim. To return to the path we had to climb up through a small not steep wall. We encountered a small village, quick stop for a lemonade and we continued the walk. About 15 km from the end of the trail, it happened what for me was the most beautiful moment of the day; it started pouring down rain. I had no sense of time; the phone was in my backpack, and it had been there all day. It must have rained for an indefinite time, I would say an hour, maybe less, I have no idea. For all those remaining kilometers we did not encounter any villages, as we were walking along a short piece of road we met only a truck passing by which offered us a lift, which we politely declined.
We finished the walk drenched, with the sun already waned. The clock indicated that with the detours made we had walked 32 km.
Last year I found myself walking on one of the routes to Santiago de Compostela. In my personal experience, the beauty of these experiences, hiking in the midst of nature, is not in the fatigue or the kilometers walked, but how much, how easily and deep you get more in touch with yourself and with the others, the bonds that are generated, and the mental energy that arises sweeps away all kind of physical tiredness.