American in Cyprus: Camel Park

Our destination yesterday was the Camel Park, located just outside of Larnaca. As soon as we walked through the entrance and spotted some camels, Sofia decided she did not want to be there. We convinced her to stay and in the beginning she kept a safe distance from the camels, meaning about ten feet away. The park sold bags of food for the camels so you can feed them yourself. Alex really wanted to, but was a bit nervous about it at first and ended up throwing it over the fence instead of feeding them from his hand. I don't really blame him. They are pretty large animals and their head and necks could reach pretty far outside of the fence. He grew braver as the day went on and was letting them take the food from his hand by the end of the day. Sofia also grew more accustomed to them, and agreed to get within a couple of feet of them without freaking out. She loved a pony that was there and wanted to spend most of her time there feeding it some barley. Alex also enjoyed the pony, as well as the donkeys who were in the same pen. Besides the animals, there was a bounce house and some small rides for the kids. Alex was excited to drive a Batman motorcycle and a police car. Sofia loved the bounce house. We had a nice picnic lunch there and ended up staying longer than expected. The weather was beautiful so once we left the camel park, we took a short drive to a local off the beaten path type of beach. The sand there reminded us of Hilton Head, very compact. There were also many rocks and we added to our ever growing rock collection as we took a nice, long walk. Of all the millions of rocks there, Sofia can walk along and find the exact one she was looking for. Alex prefers the orange colored rocks. Bags of rocks get heavy after a bit. Glad to have Demetris along to help out. (He's good for other reasons, too.)