Aged nineteen, the time in your life when all the very best mistakes are made, some friends and I decided it would be wise to spend what little remained of our collective student loans to celebrate surviving our first year of university by jetting off on an exotic and exciting holiday. We pictured sun, sea and sand, sipping expensive cocktails on flashy yachts, and being served our drinks by handsome men wearing nothing but uncomfortably tight speedos. We very quickly realised however that our budget wouldn’t actually stretch to anything that could be even vaguely described as ‘exotic’, so instead booked a week in the somewhat less exclusive Ayia Napa in Cyprus.
For the unaware, Ayia Napa is (or at least was at the time) considered to be something of a 18-30 ‘wild time’ paradise. And yes, paradise is being used ironically. It’s a party-party-party type location by reputation, where the vast majority of vacationers will be sleeping through the day and setting both the world and their loins on fire by night. There was said to be no place on earth where casual sexual encounters could be found, indulged in and dismissed so easily, readily and without comment or judgement.