Acknowledgements

This website would not exist if not for certain indiduals:

  1. David Ayres: The most gifted and creative Graphic Designer I’ve ever encountered. I first met David way back in the middle part of the 1980s, when he was doing the graphic designs and artwork for Action Publications in Nicosia, which used to produce Sunjet Magazine, the In-flight Mag for (the now defunct) Cyprus Airways. At that time, I was phasing out my life as an archaeologist and contemplating starting up an off-the-beaten-track tourism company which eventually became a reality under the name of EXALT (EXcursion ALTernatives). We became immediate friends and David was a kindred spirit in terms of venturing out into Cyprus’ unexplored wilderness areas. Eventually, David met his soul-mate, a wonderful lady from Nicosia named Katerina Iereidou with graphic design skills of her own. They married, had two lovely daughters and then they “loaded up the truck” and moved to London (England, that is!), where they opened up a highly regarded design company: www.theayres.co.uk. It was natural that during all the years that I was connected with EXALT our most successful and impressive brochures and advertising materials were all designed by David and Katerina. When I approached David with the idea of this website, he graciously and most generously offered up all his superb design and artistic talents to get this project off the ground. His creative fingerprints are all over this website. Thanks, Koumpare!
  2. Simon Ritchie: After David generated the initial templates, created the logo and produced the overall “look” and “feel” of this website, the next step was to find a web-designer specialist. Enter Simon Ritchie and Ubique Design. David introduced me to one of the top “web-guys” in the UK. The parallels were too striking: David had met and married Katerina (from Nicosia, Cyprus) and, as matters turned out, Simon had met and married Paulina, also from Nicosia, Cyprus. A Brit marries a Cypriot girl x 2. And, both couples have great daughters. Too cool. Well, after David passed the baton, Simon completely took over and really gave this site a truly professional design and structure. He (and David) helped me so much with virtually ever aspect of this and he nursed me through the introductory stages of being completely website ignorant to being a website novice. He looked after so many details (like helping me choose some of the photos and then cleaning them up) and added a lot of creative input. So thanks to Simon and his super website design company (www.ubequedesign.co.uk), thanks to Paulina and thanks to the whole Ritchie family who came on one of Cyprus Exploration Unlimited’s first private excursions just last year ( https://www.cyprusexploration.com/educational-trip-paphos/).
  3. Ingela Brylde: Well over half the photos that appear on this site were harvested from many, many old slides (photographic transparencies) that I took during the 1980s and 1990s. Ingela painstakingly went through literally thousands of slides and scanned them into digital form. This very tough job, which she did out of pure friendship and without any financial compensation, is one of the main pillars of the visual side of this site. Even though I took most of the photos myself, I had no idea what treasures I possessed until she handed me a usb stick/flashdrive thingy with nearly 1000 photos. Tousem Tak, phili!
  4. Paul Croft: My old mate and co-explorer, whose face and (often contorted) body appear in numerous photos taken during the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s, when he along with some other great characters accompanied me and helped me during numerous explorations into Cyprus untamed landscapes. He allowed me to use these images without any restrictions and I warmly and respectfully salute him for this and many other things. I look forward to one or two more adventure days in the future!
  5. Janet Pearlman: My final gratitude goes to my own sister who first suggested the idea of a website. Of course, I did nothing for three years, but owing to her constant reminders (nagging, no never!), I eventually got it going with the incredible assistance of the two aforementioned gentlemen. So thanks to her, I am where I am today. Giasou, adelphoua!

Top