KALYMNOS Camping Site is a stone’s throw from Governor’s Beach and a microcosm of villages like Peyia or Pissouri: an essentially Cypriot community living happily alongside mostly British expats at a ratio of around 4:1.
The well laid out site consists of a mix of comfortable, luxury mobile homes with all the mod cons and small caravans with built-on timber extensions. Many with large covered terraces and some with courtyard sized gardens. Site rents vary from €1,100 per annum for a maximum six months occupation and up to €1,600 for all-year-round, any amount of mains water inclusive.
Electricity is charged at twice the Electricity Board rate per unit, but there are no other hidden costs. Several mobile homes (40m², plus the same size covered terrace) are usually up for sale priced between €30,000 and €40,000: good value when compared to an 80m² two-bedroom apartment in anywhere Cyprus.
There are 350 individual sites managed by the CTO franchisee, Nicos Alexandrou, with the help of his charming accounts clerk and gatekeeper Christiana, sensitive gardener Emilios, and an odd-job man.
Nicos also runs the panoramic Kalymnos Restaurant; one sits looking west across the four fish farms, purple sea and into the sunset – and not east towards the Vasilikon Power Station, oil tanker and cement factory. Fortunately for campsite residents, winds invariably blow west by north west, thus directing industrial pollution and smoke over the nearby seaside town of Zygi.
A naval base is sensibly situated between the campsite and power station, the twin gunboats regularly churning through the waves at 25 knots, sounding like old tanks, the sailors exercising their guns regularly. Naval helicopter air displays and lifesaving trainings are performed just above our heads, all in all making us feel safe and secure from attack by any invader.
The majority of Cypriot owner-occupiers (all year round) are long-suffering refugees, mostly retired and ageing comfortably. They are a lot like most of the expats, who pass the day swimming, sunbathing, fishing and exploring the surrounding countryside, Limassol supermarkets and DVD shops. They have satellite TV and internet access, monitor world stock markets and gather together in each other’s homes for regular chats and cups of tea, somewhat redolent of Coronation Street.
They are well-informed and always clued in to cheap flights back home and organised ferrying one another to and from the airports, having yet to be confronted by the island’s airport louts, as taxi drivers are fondly known by us all.
This year there are noticeably fewer aircraft navigating the skies at an altitude of 3,000 feet, using the campsite to line up with the landing strip at Larnaca Airport, a mere 30 clicks downwind.
Kalymnos attracts many weekenders from Nicosia, Larnaca and Limassol, who gather in family groups of anything from two to 20, launching their 25ft cruisers, jet skis and speedboats into the sea from the small beach situated beside Nicos’ restaurant, emptying the immediate waters of all fish. (And there are fish, whenever the campsite poacher interferes with the four farm nets on dark nights.) The day-trippers then return to hose down the boats, followed by the ritual barbecue: the smoke from which favourably competes with that spewing out of the power station chimney.
Notwithstanding the smoke and my compatriots’ vociferous jocularity ahead of the early afternoon feast, their children are to be seen – and more particularly heard – bombing around the campsite on miniature quads and tiny motorised bikes; the youngest of the dozen or so who perform this circus act being not more than five years old. His mini-motor veers all over the road and even into the main road last Sunday, avoiding a collision with a speeding 4WD by inches.
Having witnessed this feat of bravado, I took it upon myself to inform his parents that he would not escape the inevitable a second time. They immediately sent the child to his room. Why the first time was permitted to occur at all is beyond me.
Due to the fall in the value of sterling, expat pensioners are beginning to feel like refugees, imprisoned due to financial strictures. Even so, it’s preferable to be in Kalymnos and not in some concrete palace with a large mortgage and no title deeds.
One couple recently came across a small supermarket in Limassol selling groceries passed their sell-by date at a third of the normal price: beverages, tinned foods, confectionery, etc. They happily invested €50.
Two families take their children (Jack and Liam) to local schools. Within two years, the boys have learnt to speak, write and read Greek, successfully integrating with their village classmates. Jack joined the local football club and his thrice weekly training sessions sees him swearing in the vernacular as competently as any village lad. The local priest who runs the Maroni youth club, occasionally frowns, but Jack tells me that he has yet to be reprimanded. Liam’s mother, Alison would like to have her son baptised into the Greek Orthodox faith by that same priest.
Satin blond hair and blue-eyed boys both, the two boys give me cause to wonder whether, if and when they are married to Cypriot girls, their offspring will not be regarded as being of the Anglo Saxon race. Cross breeding is the only way out of our sick past, our multifarious and deformed histories – but is it the only and right way forward?
Sorry, there I go again musing… It’s probably due to regularly gazing out to sea and ruminating somewhere on the horizon.
The campsite poacher’s name and that of the small supermarket can be supplied on request.
