On 19th March went on a hike to Amiantos area in Troodos. The trail started near the village of Kato Amiantos walked along the river reached the flooded entrance of the old asbestos mine and then climbed up the hill over the mine and then descended back to the river and followed the same path back. A total of around 12km of walking, and climbing up and down; this was probably the hardest hike I’ve done in my life and most certainly one of the hardest trails in Cyprus (I am trying to find a harder one just for the challenge).
Walking along the river side was easy; we had to cross the river a few times but it was not that hard, the challenge started when we reached the lake, at that point we took the wrong path and ended up having to climb up the hill which was quite steep. Once at the top we slowly started walking down when we realized we spent 5 hours in what was supposed to take us 3-4 hours. At that point we decided to take a different path so that we could make it off the mountain before sundown. The new path was quite hard, we were essentially climbing down the dry path rainwater created. Because the particular mountain peak is mostly made of sand, the water eroded a steep corridor around a metre wide and around 2 metres deep. We needed to be careful not to touch the walls cause the path would collapse and at the same time had to climb down drops of about 2-3m at a time. It took us another hour to get out of that and then walk along the river back to our starting point.
Was it fun? yes! will I do it again? definitely!
