This is a funny story that could have ended with us in a foreign hospital.
It's a beautiful day in Cyprus, day 6 of our week long family holiday and my younger brother rents a quad bike, which is awesome. The very open nature of the vehicle makes 40 mph feel like 60. The very open nature is also sure to amplify any road accidents. As they say in Mortal Kombat - fatality!
Being an amateur photographer, I have my Nikon and rucksack of lenses and we're off on the quad. We're a few minutes from the hotel and I'm trying to find an antique and worn out looking car we passed by the other day. I love my photography and bashed up, sun bleached vehicles are excellent subjects for photography. All the photographers out there will understand.
I find what I'm looking for at the edge of a dirt field and we pull over. It's a wreck, bonnet and rear twisted and misshapen. It's also perfect for that urban decay theme.
I'm getting my wide angle shots of this sun bleached beauty when an angry man marches out of a nearby house and rants at us. It turns out this dirt field may have been his garden. Not that you would have known, what with the weeds and absence of any boundary whatsoever.
"Why are you taking photo of car?"
At this point we should have fired up the quad bike and sped away. I had my shots (thank goodness for my manual presets!) but I still had to grab my rucksack. Before we know what's happened, the guy pulls the key out of the ignition and threatens us with a beating.
"You delete photo! Now!" His eyes are bloodshot and he is holding a plank of wood at this point.
My little photo excursion escalates into a stand off with an unstable Cypriot man. Like the car, we're about to wrecked.
I slip the memory card from the camera to my rucksack in the least obvious manner possible, but he sees what I'm doing.
Bad move. He's even more angry now.
"I see memory card in your hand! I'm not malakas!" Malakas gets used a lot by this guy.
He takes a photo of our number plate and announces he's going to call the quad bike rental next door (it's not the right place, we got our quad bike a few blocks further away). He also makes it clear he'll get the police to track us down even if we leave Cyprus (which will never happen).
He's still holding the plank and making a lot of huffing and puffing gestures.
Kev displays some uncharacteristic maturity for my younger brother (7 years my junior) and brings out the charm game. Sensing what he's trying, I join in and soon we're complementing his house and shaking hands with him. His anger subsiding, he blurts out that he's afraid the photos would get him in trouble, something about a previous motoring accident and insurance claims.
I show him the memory cards I have and cycle through all the shots. There's not a single shot of his car and he's satisfied with this.
By the way, this is the car in question.
Yeah, I hid one of the cards.
Comments