We found the Aiva Arches the way we seem to find lots of things – through satellite images. I spend whole evenings poring over satellite images, looking for interesting places to explore.
I spotted this, north of Coral Bay:
What is that round structure? And is that really sea inside it??
We drove there the following weekend to investigate. Past Coral Bay, past the Paphos sea caves but not quite as far as Agios Georgios.
We parked on top of the cliffs and took a walk along the clifftop pathway to see what we could see.
The landscape was stunning. White cliffs fell towards the sea like giant steps. The rock was sharp at the top, forming rocky overhangs that looked like perilously fragile icicles. Nearer the sea, the rock smoothed out into beautiful curved structures.
Below us we spotted an area where the sea had cut the rock into half a dozen channels. These are called the Aras Fingers. I was desperate to get in the water to explore them, but how did we get down the cliffs?
The cliff path dipped down and we saw a little cove beneath with a pebbly beach. At a stretch we could probably climb down the rocks to it and explore the coastline from there.
White dusty sand stuck to our clothes as we walked down. We got as far as the final lip of rock and then it was a very steep climb down to the beach.
Matt and Goobie scrabbled down and then I lowered Herc into Matt’s outstretched arms below. We were down and the sparkling turquoise sea was waiting for us to jump in.
Goobie and I donned our snorkels and fins and ran in. After the dusty climb, the sea felt delicious. While Matt and Herc collected driftwood and sea glass on the beach, Goobie and I swam out of the cove and turned south to explore the Aras Fingers.
We’d timed our visit for low tide but the sea was choppy and it wasn’t safe enough to take Goobie into all the channels of the Aras Fingers. Some of the channels contained large rocks and the waves could have easily thrown Goobie into them.
So we swam down the widest, clearest channel, stopping to let sets of waves pass.
We reached the far end and there in front of us a sea tunnel snaked into the darkness. Awesome!
We swam out of the channel and continued south, past the Aras Fingers.
And then I spotted it. A massive, majestic archway, beckoning us in. We’d found the Aiva Arches. From the sea it looked like the remnant of a colossal temple built by a lost civilization.
We swam towards it, trying to snap a photo as the waves threw us around.
It loomed taller and taller as we swam closer. Through the archway, I caught a glimpse of a tiny hidden lagoon and beach.
We swam under the archway and into the lagoon beyond. The water was shallow and the rocks sharp and slippery. We took off our fins and looked around.
The lagoon was surrounded on all sides by a circular wall of rock. The only openings were the huge archway and a smaller ‘door’ in the southern wall.
It was breathtaking. How had I never heard about the Aiva Arches before? Never seen any photos on the internet?
Then we remembered Herc and Matt, still on that little beach further up the coast. We left the Aiva Arches via its southern door, wading through a narrow channel, then climbing up onto the rocks. From up here we got a great aerial view of the lagoon.
Goobie and I were able to climb over the smooth, white rocks beneath the cliffs all the way back to the little beach where Herc and Matt were waiting. They followed us back to the Aiva Arches, through dust that sat like white sand on the rocks.
It wasn’t too hard to reach the Aiva Arches with a two-year-old and a DSLR camera. Although the sea was choppy, it was calm inside the lagoon. Some of the rocks were slippery and sharp, so I was grateful we had our sea shoes on.
As we stood and took it all in, a twenty-something bohemian man swam through the arch and walked ashore. We said hello.
‘Have you seen the hidden tunnel?’ he asked.
The what???? And I thought this place couldn’t get any better.
He led us to a far ‘corner’ of the lagoon and there, in a nook, was a doorway that led into darkness. We hadn’t spotted it before.
We followed him in and the darkness opened out into a magnificent sea cave, lit by a large entrance that we hadn’t seen from the sea. We’d been too distracted by the arch.
This cave was incredible.
Matt went for a snorkel and Herc and Goobie ran around the lagoon and sea cave, shouting, splashing, looking for heart-shaped pebbles.
I opened a box of sushi and sat on a rock in the shade to eat my lunch, watching my children playing happily in front of me. Ah, what a spot!
We got back to the car by heading south out of the lagoon. We climbed over some moderately steep rocks (though Herc could do it on his own) which led to a small beach with its own mini arch and mini sea caves. From here we spotted a well-used natural path that took us back up the cliff to the car park.
After all the faff getting to the Aiva Arches, we discovered that there was no need to walk along the cliffs to hidden coves or dangle toddlers off ledges of rock to husbands underneath. If we’d just followed this very straightforward path, it would have taken us to the Aiva Arches in minutes.
We loved the Aiva Arches. We’d stumbled across something rather wonderful that somehow hasn’t made it into the tourist guidebooks.
Amidst the many beautiful places in Cyprus, some have a very unique energy. The Akamas peninsula is one of these areas. The Aiva Arches is another. And as I walked past people meditating on the rocks, I realised I wasn’t the only one who felt this energy.
This place is special.
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