Když jsem byl na Kypru... (When I was in Cyprus...)

So... it all started a few months ago when me and my friend Stephen were tryin to figure out a place to go for Christmas since we would both be in Europe and not in America. We were looking for somewhere exotic yet not pricey to go to. Our choices slowly narrowed down to Cyprus and Istambul. So, after much consideration of the two, we decided that we knew absolutely nothing about Cyprus at the time being, so yea, let's go there. It sounds fairly exotic. So, we got out tickets and bought a couple travel books about the place so we could find out what really was on the up and up in Cyprus. We learned a lot about the place fairly quickly. For example... since the fall of Berlin, it's got the only divided capitol in the world, (the island is divided into Greeks and Turks). So it was a little interesting. There were lots of military guys everywhere. And next we realized that they drive on the left side of the road, like in England, so that would also be a bit strange for us. And we would have to rent a car cuz there is practically no public transportation on the island and to get to all the cool places, you need a car. Wow... so are you ready for the real story now? Ok, so I'll tell you how it all went down...

Day 1: We arrive into Larnaka (on the south) at 230 in the morning. We get out and find the rental agency that I booked and find that we've got a lot of extra charges that we have to pay (wow, it's not gonna be such a cheap trip i think). After the extra charges he asks if I want to get the full coverage (which includes insurance on tires, windshield, and something else), and at this point i think he's just tryin to steal more from me, so i say heck no. So... we get into our car, and we decide that we need to practice driving on the left side of the road... it's a bit strange. And i hadn't driven a stick in a while, so it was a little bit to get used to it. So... we got situated and then we drove to the capitol of Lefkosia in the middle of the island. We got there about 4ish and then we were tired so we just found somewhere, a parking lot to sleep for a few hours in. We woke at about 730 or 8 and decided to venture out into the city... Welll... our venturing didn't last long, cuz after maybe a quarter mile, I hit a curb and busted the tire (now that full coverage insurance wasn't looking so expensive, was it). So... we looked across the street and realized that we were next to the military border (I felt we were in Stripes and just crossed the Czechoslovakia border). I went and asked them for some advice and they told me today was Boxing Day, so nothing was open. Ugh... they told us if we needed help changing the tire, they'd help. So i went' and asked them, cuz i wasn't in the mood to get my hands dirty and change a tire, so i went and told them i didn't know how and the whole platoon started laughing at me. Oh well. they changed out tire and we could go to the city. It was a really interesting city. With the borders and soldiers everywhere. Really crazy place. But it was rainning and there really wasn't much to see besides the center and the border. So, we left Lefkosia maybe a day ahead of schedule, at about noon on the first day. We headed down to the coast to LImassol. It looks kinda far on the map, but it was only maybe 50 miles and we were there in an hour. It really goes quite fast :) On the beach it wasn't raining, so we went to a nice beach, Governor's Beach, and relaxed and hiked for several hours around the surrounding area. It was a good day. Then we drove a bit more on the highway westward and tried to get to a few places, but it was too late. We did make it to a fortress which was kinda cool cuz it overlooked the vineyards. And there was this guy at a fruit and coffee stand that has been working there for 40 years. Crazy. Then, It was dark, so we found another beach and ate dinner at a restaurant, and went to the beach and had some drinks and talked and then we camped out in our car that night. It actually got a bit cold and we weren't the happiest of campers, but we survived through the night. It was quite an interesting first day.






Day 2: We woke up a bit cold. I think the temp was about 40. And it was windy, but it warmed up a bit, but it was still windy. Then we made it up to the most famous ancient site on Cyprus, called Kourion.
It was really cool. It overlooked the sea on a cliff and had an amphitheatre and several markets and houses. It was really a great time. Only thing is that it was windy. But it didn't matter. We were there in the morning and then we went to the Cyprus Wine Museum. It was really interesting and we found out that wine producing actually came from Cyprus. It is the second oldest wine pruducing country in the world. Only Iran has older. But it's impressive to think that the wine's all over France and Italy and Europe were influenced first by Cyprus. We tried several wines and it was quite interesting and tasty. We were then planning on spending the day at a few other beaches, but we got this wild idea to go to the mountains to visit this absolutely gorgeous monastery. So, it was maybe an hour and a half to get there, so we decided to do it. But as we got more and more high, we realized that the weather was getting worse. And then we saw snow!! At the sea, the temperature was about 60 and when we got to the monastery 2 hours later, the temperature was about 10 (in only a matter of 60 miles!!!) And the roads were really really icy and snowy and i was driving in the mountains on the left side of the road about 8 miles an hour!! You do the math, and imagine how horrible this drive was. But it was really quite an amazing monastery and really awesome and beautiful, but it was really cold and we were up for pondering the meaning of life, or entering the brotherhood, so we left, but we had a very clever idea. We wanted to find another way down, cuz i didn't want to drive the same way as before on the ice and all. So we found this gray road on the map... what we didn't realize was that this was like an offroad service road for hikers or 4wheelers or something. It was quite fun, and 15km long. You do the math, still driving about 8 miles an hour, but it's not on ice and snow, which was better... instead we were in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, in a crappy normal car without 4wheel drive, with no spare tire, driving over rocks and speeding through small streams that crossed the road, and we didn't realy know where or when we would finish this road. We just kept imagining popping another tire and being stranded and dying out there. It was a fun drive though, I was on the edge of my seat as i slowly eased upon every rut and crossed every stream. :) I was just glad that we didn't do anything to the uninsured windshield :) one of the trees did make a big long scratch along the side of the car, but it didn't matter, that's covered. So, finally we got out of the mountains and arrived in Paphos at dusk. We found a parking place and wanted to get some hostel for the evening but found our hostel was no longer running. So we went and got pizza and were talking to the owner and he mentioned his friend's place which was really fairly cheap, so he took us there in his car and we slept in beds after 2 nights of no beds and it was great and after a horrible day in the mountains, I needed some rest. It was a great evening. We sat on the balcony overlooking the city and the sea and relaxed! Wow... day 2 complete, 3 to go.

Day 3: Day 3 is when things start settling down a bit. Today was our day to relax. Today we woke up and had some breakfast and went to this really nice internet cafe and were on the net for a bit and then we relaxed and had a really big and nice cappucino and it was beautiful. Then we decided that it would be a good time to get our tired fixed :) So the owner of the hotel had a friend, of course, and so we went to his place and our rim was bent a bit, and i was hoping that i wouldn't have to buy another one of those. But luckily the guy pulled out these 2 huge hammers and started hammering away at the rim without any haste. It was cool. And they put on a new tire and everything was beautiful, except the price of course. And the next thing that happened could have only happened in Cyprus. I think only in Cyprus are people nice enough that even at the mechanic shop will they invite you in to have a cup of coffee with them :) Well I certainly paid them enough, so i didn't feel sad to accept. The next thing we did was go down to the harbor where was the only place on Cyprus where i saw a bunch of tourists. Wow, so many, it was amazing.
So we walked around for a bit, and then got back in the car and went to this archeological site called "The Tomb of the Kings" which is an old burial groud for elite rich people. There are a lot of caves and carved in them are tombs which were really interesting. We spent some time here and them we decided to head north to the small city of Polis which is on the northern side of the island. We drove over some big hills during sunset and it was a beautiful view. It's funny though when you're up on the top of a hill and you can see the sea from the south and also to the north. So we arrived in Polis and to our dismay our hotel we were wanting to stay had was closed. Kinda strange, but i buzzed it and the man said "Sorry, we're closed" but oh well. We went to another place that was closer to the town center and was cheaper and we stayed there. We had a really nice room with a nice balcony.
We walked to this one restaurant that we wanted to go to because they give you a complimentary bottle of wine (which sounded cool), but apparently they had recently closed and this new Syrian restaurant, called Damascus, had opened, and had only been open for 4 days!! We ordered a bottle of wine (which was without a doubt the best wine I'd ever had!) and we ordered the traditional Cypriot meal called "meze". This meal includes just about everything on the menu... quite litereally. Just a sample of about everything on the menu... if you can't believe it, look at the pic I have, and what's showing is only about half of what we got. It was quite an experience to have and a wonderful place to have it. I'd reccomend this restaurant to anyone going to Cyprus. After this amazingly filling dinner, we walked quite slowly back to our place where we relaxed on our balcony a bit more, when a strange occurance happened. I went inside to get something and then came back out and shut the door which happened to lock behind me. I got quite scared and was thinking about jumping down the 30 feet to the ground when after 5 minutes or so we got the smart idea to try the door on the other side which had been locked previously but for some reason had unlocked itself at the perfect time for us to open it and safely make it inside and to decide to never completely shut the door ever again during our trip. We slept well this night after a good experience without any downfalls of the day.

Day 4: Day 4 was a beautiful day, maybe the most beautiful for us. We woke up and drove to the northeastern part of the island (only about 10 miles away), called the Akamas Peninsula. Here we hiked and walked around for a bit and enjoyed the scenery and ran across a few other tourists as well. The weather was perfect and sunny, and great!! We were walking here about 3 hours and then we decided to hit the road once more. But just as we were getting close to our car, we came upon a strange lady with a truckfull of mandarines. She was very happy about her mandarines and wanted everyone to try them, therefore she was being very forward and going up to everyone one and yelling at everyone (whilst using the one 3 English words she knew) "Hello!! Hello!! Hello!! Very Sweet!! Very Sweet!! (she sounded like one of the annoying old ladies from a Monty Python movie if you can imagine). So she coerced us to come over there and try her mandarines and she wasn't lying, they were quite sweet, and somehow she persuaded us to purchase a bag of 40 of them. So we bought it and were on our way back south.
We had heard about this really amazing beach, Lara Beach, but it was off the beaten track, but we wanted to try and get there anyways. So we headed for it and again had to travel on an offroad course for another 15 km, but it really wasn't a problem this time and it was quite fun cuz it was downhill and you could see the sea the entire time with a nice view. So we got to the beach and walked on it for a while and we saw all these millions of beautifully colored rocks with these great designs, every one of them being different colors and designs. It was great and a fun thing to see. We walked for a while and we sat down and ate most of the mandarines here for lunch (but it wasn't so filling). Then we headed off to where we wanted to try and make it for the night, which was on the complete opposite side of the island, in Agia Napa. It's funny cuz the complete other side of the island is only about an hour and a half's drive away. So we got there about 7ish and found a really dirty hotel and walked around this city for a bit. This city is supposed to be the second biggest party city in the Mediterranean, but in the winter the city is closed! All the bars and clubs and hotels and resorts were all closed, so it was quite interesting to be in some kind of ghost town. But it was fun to walk around a bit. So, we went home, chilled on our balcony for a bit (where the temperature was fantastic and then went to bed!

Day 5:Our last day on Cyprus. We awoke with ease and spent lots of time relaxing and lookin pretty. We turned on the tube for the first time and happened upon a stupid Christmas film with Ben Affleck that we couldn't turn off, so we ventured out finally in the early afternoon into the rain and walked around Agia Napa for a bit and then continued on. We wandered near the border with the north into a city that had some kind of National Museum about all the unrest in the area and this is the same place where a lot of unrest happened. So we watched some films and looked out into a ghost town in Northern Cyprus which as been evacuated. Then we decided that we wanted to go to the North, so there are maybe 5 or 6 places where you can do this and the closest one was maybe 30 miles away, so we went to it and parked and decided to walk around the other side for a bit. It's strange when you cross the border it's just like another country, they give us a piece of paper which is supposed to suffice as a visa and then they stamp it and we go. We drove back to Larnaka where we decided we would walk around the coastal area and eat and enjoy the atmosphere. So we had a good dinner and then walked around the beach and harbor and then went into this one bar for a drink and we watched some soccer and then we realized that this night at this bar was karaoke night.
So it was easy to waste away a few hours at this place before we had to head to the airport at 11pm. So, we finally made it back to the airport with the car intact and only one small problem with the tire and a perfectly clean windshield. Our plane didn't leave until 3am, so we had time to chill and relax and be bored. When it finally was our time to check in, we realized that we had a problem. Stephen lost his ticket because we didn't realize we didn't have etickets and we didn't know our ticket was the ticket, so luckily i hung on to mine, and he paid a small replacement fee, but after maybe an hour and a half of tryin to get the problem solved, so we finally got it fixed in time to catch the final boarding call and phew our trip was a total success and full of memorable moments. I hope you enjoyed listening and seeing my trip. Take care.