And so it continued

Day 2: Following the late night the only thing that was missing was sleep. Despite only 3 hours of rest and an 8 a.m. start we were all looking forward to the next leg of our weekend activity getaway. We had an hour’s travel to Latsi (North of Pafos) where we had rented out a boat for the afternoon.

By the time we arrived at the coast you could feel the suspense and eagerness to get started. The summer heat was onto us and we just wanted to dive into the sea and cool down a little.  But first things first, we got that cool box filled up with ice and beer. Once we saw the boat we knew that it had been worth the wait.  It was more than we had bargained for, and we knew that once away from shore we were in for a decent time.

So we were all aboard and ready to go. Gio, one of the ’infamous six’ was going to sail us out. We had our booze, inflatable ring, water skis, and our music jamming. We started out by cruising and then made a couple of stops to sunbathe and swim, most notably at the blue lagoon, before we started with the water sports.

First up the inflatable ring. What do you get with Gio steering the boat and one of us on the ring? A crazy guy crashing upon waves, and swerving 180 just to make the other either bounce off the ring or swallow some sea water. After all of us got a turn on the ‘crazy ride’ it was time to ski. Now this was my first time and decided to do it with one ski. The result….fail. Then I tried with two skis. The result….fail. I was always of the opinion that I could do anything if I put my mind to it, but it sure is harder than it looks. There I was, with no balance or composure at all, and when the boat slowly accelerated instead of slowly coming up onto surface I was just sinking deeper. Either way, it was a good laugh and well worth the camera shots. We topped our day off with lunch at a local restaurant before heading for the villa where we would all get a little rest in.

In the evening we had a paintballing session set up. It was 9 p.m. when we got there. The venue itself was pretty impressive hosting three battlefields filled with barrels, abandoned cars, worn down shacks and floodlights were turned on giving the total experience a little bit more twist. Before we got started though we were given a briefing of what we can (basically mouth expletives) and can’t do (shoot in the sensitive areas) from the instructor before we were handed out our gear and split into two teams of five, the only distinction between the two teams being the different colored helmets.

We fuelled ourselves with Jager shots before entering the battleground and getting into position. Once the ref gave the go ahead I must confess to thoughts of camping it out to make sure I was the last man standing from my team and and gain bragging rights as the survivor of the team. But when I saw my team mates go for it I did the opposite and went gung ho.

The first of the five battles was over and we were in for a long night. We left the field giving each other banter followed by more shots and downing beers to prepare for round two. This time, after being accustomed to the field there was more thought going into the general strategy, initial positioning of each paintballer, where we would attack from, who was going to cover and who was going to sacrifice himself for the benefit of the team and go all solo without a game plan! Tiredness combined with alcohol had started to take its toll but we kept going on pure adrenaline.

Past midnight and after round five, a declared winner, 4 pints down, 3 jager shots and buzzing ears from who did what and ‘I killed you but your too much of a chicken-sh*t to admit it’ we sat down on a bench outside the briefing room where the hosts prepared a bbq for all of us. The hosts of the venue were just great and let us do our own thing and enjoy the whole experience. Good company, guns, booze and all you can eat. What more did we need?