The Matsima tap is very old, and it was the first stop for the travellers that were heading to Stavros tis Psokas and from there on to Poli and Pyrgos, coming from the Kykkos Monastery or the area of Kampos tis Tsakkistras.
The water up until 1967 ran freely from the rocks, thus creating a stream that descended the slope of the mountain. In 1967, the government of Cyprus built a reservoir made of cement and placed spouts in it for the best service of the passers.
Up until today, the road that connects the Kykkos Monastery with Stavros tis Psokas, is at the disposal of strong travellers. The narrow road follows a meandric morphology of vertical mountain slopes of Kykkos at its first kilometres and the forests of Paphos later on.
On your left you will see vertical notches of rocks that have been made a few years ago for a partial widening of the then dirt road and a later on asphalt road, while on the right you have steep and deep slopes planted with pine trees.
Just a few dozens of years ago, the Matsima tap was the only “eye witness” at a murder. A village resident of the area took his pregnant wife by force to a point found a few hundred metres from the tap, where the road divides into two and takes you to the valley of the cedrus trees, and after he tied her up on a tree, he killed her.
The murder of Paradeisa, as the girl was called, shocked the whole society of Cyprus. The poets of the period such as Andreas Mappouras, told the story of her death through their poems. Back then, poetry was the only way news were told.
Today the Matsima tap does not offer its water to travellers. The spouts were closed and the water found other ways to get out of the rocks. Only the ancient fig tree that still exists opposite of the tap “serves” the travellers still today, giving them its sweet figs.
In the same area, the oldest cedrus tree of the whole island is also found. It has a height of 22 metres and it is 300 years old and it stands up “proud” facing the sky, while it covers the Cypriot landscape in the Kykkos mountains.
