Road Trip to the TRNC

One rainy afternoon in Amsterdam back in January, there was a meeting for everyone enrolled in culture lab to discuss logistics and explain what the course consisted of. I remember Murray asking the class if we wanted to go to Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, at some point on the trip. We were all incredibly enthusiastic, but arriving in Paphos 6 months later I sort of forgot about it. So when the morning came for us to go, it all seemed a bit surreal. Our general experience of Paphos had been quite mixed, and none of us were really sure what to expect of the capital. Would it be a big city? Or another little town like Paphos? I knew it was quite a bit bigger, but with a divide running through the middle I wondered how much of a capital it would actually be. In reality it was an incredibly vibrant city with lots to explore within its ancient Venetian walls. 

There was only one problem - me being me, I had forgotten my passport. As I got off the bus to walk to the hotel, a sudden vision came to me of that vital little red book tucked into the pocket of my suitcase 150km away. What an idiot! Without my passport there was no way I could cross the border, and just like that half of the city slammed its door in my face. 

So what should I do now? The next time we were scheduled to meet was in two days in Paphos, I had the whole weekend to explore but no way to get to the North. I heard two of the others (Daisy and Jenni) talking about going back to Paphos, renting a car and driving to the Turkish side via the Akamas peninsula, a remote mountain wilderness on the edge of Cyprus. They had two spare seats: problem more than solved! Id been dreaming of going to the Akamas peninsula since I first enrolled in the course, and the siren call of the North side sparked my curiosity - what was this mystical place that everyone seemed to be talking about but no one wanted you to access? You know how it is when someone tells you you cant do something, you only want to do it 100 times more. 

That's how I found myself up and about at the ungodly hour of 7am, tired but excited and unsure what to expect. We set off from the hotel to pick up the car, but when we got there the office was closed. According to google it should have been open for a good 45 minutes. Typical. We called the number on the door and within 15 minutes a car pulled up. A little unorthodox but what can you do? We signed the contract with one or two disputes and were on our way in less than half an hour. As we pulled out of the parking bay, we saw the employees getting back in their cars with the office all locked up again; a hard days work finished. 

We drove to the Baths of Aphrodite which took about an hour with the most breathtaking views first of beaches then of the town below as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains. We visited the baths and then stopped off at the practically deserted rocky beach at the bottom of the cliff. The only access we could see was a dubious looking dried up riverbed. It was quite an unsteady way down, but the sea was glistening such a clear blue we couldn't resist. 

View From the Beach

After an hour or so swimming, sunbathing, and (for the English among us) wishing our dads a happy fathers day, we somehow pulled ourselves off the beach and back to the car ready for more. 

In the first 5 seconds of being on the beach

As we got further north, hugging the coast on an insane mountain road with a sharp curve every thirty seconds and untouched landscape all around, we saw fewer and fewer villages. We stopped for some food and again to eat it, finding an almost deserted beach for a post meal swim. 

Pretty neat huh?

We finally got to the border around 4.30pm, so we decided to stay in the north for a drink and then head home. Crossing the border, however, proved more complicated than expected. Passing through the Republic side wasn't a problem, however things proved more difficult once we hit the TRNC. A big bald guard with a huge tattoo on his arm depicting the map of Cyprus with a crescent moon and star inside told us that southern insurance isn't valid there and that we had to pay for a new one. We sat in the car debating what to do but in the end decided it was worth the 20€, and although we were less sure about waiting 30 minutes without air con for everything to be processed, we were totally right. It was totally worth it. 

They're pretty crazy about their hillside flags in the TRNC

As you drive across the border the first thing you notice is that the plants on the side of the road need cutting back. On either side of the buffer zone there are abandoned villages. Most houses have no roofs or no walls, but the villages are still signposted. Scars of a war not forgotten.

After a while we noticed a sign for Vouni Palace, so we turned off the main road to explore. The road we followed was steep single lane tarmac curving round a mountain like a helter-skelter with a sheer drop to one side. At the top we found the ruin of a palace. The Greek-Cypriots had claimed it was Greek, the sign read, but really it was Persian from the 4th Century, although it had also been occupied and upgraded by the Greeks after the Persian defeat in the 4th Century. Whether or not this was true is debatable, but either way it was beautiful. 

The castle itself was huge, and the view truly spectacular. To the left and behind stretched endless mountains covered in a carpet of pine trees. Straight ahead the Mediterranean speckled with white horses, like a reflection of the sky above. To the right a huge plane with towns bordering beaches stretching in a crescent to the tip of Morphou Bay. And right in front a ruined palace. I could have spend hours there just looking.

The ruins

the mountains

The ruins and the mountains

But we didn't have hours, so we got back in the car and continued, back down the helter-skelter, back onto the road. After a little while we came to a roadside bar that looked promising enough, driving through a small town to get there. The town was very bare, the houses pragmatic. Some were crumbling. There were a few big mansion houses, but all of them were in disrepair; another remnant of a by-gone era of prosperity for the little seaside town. 

Pulling over next to the road, we walked into the bar and asked the guy sitting on his phone if the place was open. He motioned for us to wait, and came back with a slim tallish man who we later learnt was called Ali. In broken English he asked what we wanted and took our orders. 

We ordered a Turkish coffee, and Andreas asked if they had baklava. Ali motioned for one of us to come with him, so I followed him down the road to the local bakery, where he bought us some baklava of my choice. While we were waiting I started asking him some questions. He told me he had never been to the south, although he would have liked to go, but that it was impossible for him because he needed a visa. I asked him what he meant by this, but his answer wasn't clear. I looked into what he could have meant but I haven't been able to find anything. Everyone that we spoke to on both sides has been so friendly - the people of Cyprus are happy to have a conversation with you in a way most other countries wouldn’t. 

When we got back to the bar with the baklava, Ali muttered something about it being too warm and took it inside. After about five minutes he came back out with the baklava and a scoop of ice-cream on plates: “you cant have baklava warm! Its not right”. The baklava and ice-cream lasted about as long as it takes a piranha to strip to the bone (and if you were to watch us eat, it would have looked pretty similar). Wary of the time we thanked him, paid, and set off on our way.

some very happy people and their (short lived) bakalava

We tried to cross the border at Lefke, but didnt have the right papers, so had to turn around and go back the way we came. Normally I would have been frustrated, but I was more than happy to see the sights again. We arrived home around 11.30pm, exhausted but content.

5 minutes from the Lefke border

Our trip to Northern Cyprus was one filled with unexpected delights, beautiful scenery, and wonderful people. I would recommend a trip to anyone visiting the island.

As if the day wasn't beautiful enough