By Margaret Sheard …
Yalçın Adal and Stavros Protz are now half way through their Journey into Cyprus, walking east to west, which started at Andreas Apostolos Cape and will end at Aphrodite Rocks, Paphos.
We are very grateful to our friends in Buyukkonuk for making us aware of this wonderful venture for peace and reunification of Cyprus by two very good friends who live in Melbourne, Australia, Yalçın who is Turkish Cypriot and Stavros who is Greek Cypriot, and also thanks to Yalçın’s mother and father who we recently met.
I had been following the maps closely to establish when Yalçın and Stavros would be close to our area and Day 8 was when they would arrive in Bellapais and we were able to establish the time they would be there so that we could meet up with them.
We went to Bellapais a little earlier than we needed to make sure we were there when the walkers arrived. Yalçın had informed me earlier that they were a little behind schedule so we had plenty of time to make our way to Bellapais and wait for them in the area of the Abbey.
We were so pleased to see Yalçın and Stavros appear from the direction we anticipated they would, and it was great to be able to sit with them for a short while and talk about their journey. We were told that there had been many surprises, mostly good but some not so pleasing, but generally they were enjoying their walk even though some of it had been very tough. They have met some lovely people along the way who have wished them well on their mission, which is to spread the word for peace and reunification of Cyprus. On one occasion Stavros was very upset at seeing an abandoned Greek Cypriot cemetery which was in a very bad state and Yalçın said he is there every step of the way for his friend and he will give him support whenever needed. A lot of the walk is over mountainous territory so there is a chance for them to get back to nature and enjoy the landscape which varies each day.
With Yalçın and Stavros were their guide Tuğberk Emirzade, Jayapaul Anand – cameraman who lives in Bangalore, India, Arthur Kipouridis – drone and filming who was accompanied by his wife and they also live in Australia. Quite a mix of nationalities.
The stop at Bellapais was fairly brief, time for a chat, to eat their packed lunch and have a look at the Abbey before setting off to their last port of call for the day – St Hilarion.
There is some lovely footage of their journey so far on Facebook which can be viewed by clicking here
To see my earlier account of this journey for peace and reunification click here, and also Days 1 and 2 click here
