We're currently in Northern Cyprus and while it’s been very full on…the food, the people and the general ambience of the place has rendered us so relaxed I’m not sure we’ll make it to the airport to go back to Britain!!!!
The day before yesterday we climbed to the peak of an old crusader castle perched on a mountain top looking as though it had been glued there. The castle of St Hilarion. Apparently, this particular castle was the inspiration for Walt Disney’s - Snow White castle. It was an amazing climb, it just kept going up and up and up and each step of the way the views were amazing.
Yesterday we drove for about 9 hours up the peninsula to Zafir Bumu and back. The villages are like mazes and once in, it’s a mission to get out! Rod has a passion for Turkish coffee and so it’s always an excuse to partake and ask for directions. However, this is mainly a Muslim country and so I sneak around trying to look inconspicuous! The roads are being reconstructed to the point that you need to guess whether or not the part you're on is the old road, the new road under construction or just a piece of what looks like road but in fact is just that. a piece that looks like road! A really good technique in that situation is following a truck. At least he's going somewhere that probably has a name. Therein lies another problem, everywhere has at least two names, one Turkish, one Greek and one they put on a map. Not the same name on every map!. We didn't really get lost a great deal, it was more that occasionally we got found!
We saw wild donkeys, drank from the spring of the Apostle Andreas (St Andrew) and ate swordfish and salad beside the Mediterranean which is outrageously, unbelievably blue.
The people are funny, warm, superbly helpful and friendly until they get behind the wheel of a car. Then they become pathological. Exaggerating slightly but, in general they aren’t nice drivers and aren’t that helpful about allowing you to merge or change lanes.
Another factor of life here is the military. They are everywhere, especially in the colossal monuments to themselves which probably took half the national economy to build. The last conflict here was in 1974 resulting in the Turks annexing the North and the Greeks the South. The UN army also has a presence as there are onging land ownership dispute. As a result all building work has ceased.
There are incomplete shells of buildings everywhere and a very poor economy.
Historically the island has seen so many invasions and empires come and go along with renowned leaders, teachers, philosophers, kings and emperors, it's hard to get your head around the fact that it's not a massive land. It's something approximately the size of the North Island. What has been important is the strategic value of Cyprus' situation ….location …. location….location…………..really wish you were here xxxxxx
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