East and west
The hotel transfer company didn't have a desk at the Pafos airport, and everybody else seemed like they were getting set to close and said they hadn't heard of the company. Finally, at around midnight, a harried-looking Russian guy appeared with a sign. He was immediately accosted by burly men in leather jackets who accused him of horning in on their business. We rescued him, proved to the cabbies that our names matched the ones on his sign (actually, we just shouted and gestured louder), and were soon speeding along on the left side of a two-lane road into town, and then on to the tourist strip just north of town where our hotel-apartment was. So that was our introduction to Cyprus, the farthest east I had ever been and certainly seeming to live up to the easternness. But it was the exception.
I hadn't expected much of the apartment part of the package, just hoping that it would have functional self-catering utilities, but Hilltop Gardens was quite pleasant. Sure, it was bit threadbare like every holiday rental I have ever seen, but had a tub in the bathroom, and a very smart-looking, not at all threadbare lobby and pool area with helpful staff. It seemed that besides sleeping and breakfast, we would also be watching the sun set here - the view from the balcony was great. It seemed to capture the essence of modern coastal Cyprus. We were on a long strip between the tourist town of Pafos and a nice beach 9 km north of town. Along the main coast road, the distance between is gradually getting filled in with estates, estate sellers, oversized tavernas, strip malls, people who sell space in strip malls, and one miniature golf course. Like S. Tenerife, there were lunar-looking constructions on sere chalky hills, and these had an interesting aesthetic. They were pretty in their hive-like, modular regularity. You couldn't tell from a distance whether they were finished or not, new or from some strange modernist craze in the 1970s. Between them and us was an expanse of - miraculously - a square km of reeds and grasses. We could also see a strip of sea and, front and center, a wrecked freighter, the Dimitrous 2, which ran aground in 1998 and has been left out there ever since in apparently a management practice learned from the Sicilians. Sea, the waving grasses, distant lunar developments, the wrecked offshore freighter. And a billboard on the main road down the that said, imaginatively, "Buy Sell!" -- that was it. It was like something an artist might come up with, a collage.
If we had been a kilometre closer to town, across from the Tombs of the Kings arhaeological site (wonderfully open headlands) we would have seen a huge KFC billboard. The sign with the Colonel's visage on a pole (I don't remember if the sign also rotated slowly, but that would have been suitably stupid, and let's say it did) must have been 10 meters high and measured 5 metres by 5 metres, apparently designed to appeal to passing ships. Maybe that is what happened to the Dimitrous 2.
The only odd thing about the apartment was that it was on the top floor and had a vaguely ungrounded feel to it, the circuit box was making a loud hum. Naturally there was a big thunderstorm that night. But then the sun was out for the most of the trip.
North and south
We had grand plans of covering most of the island in our week, even going to the north, the infamous Turkish side with its promise of unspoiled beaches, cities frozen in time, and probably many burly men in leather jackets accosting people. But the more I thought of it, the less attractive it seemed. Wouldn't it be like flying to Tbilisi, and then going to North Ossetia to experience the unspoiled local culture there? We were the Greek Cypriots' guests, why should we pretend that it's a unitary country if they don't?
Otherwise, I wouldn't take sides in the conflict. For example, on another trip, especially if originating in Turkey, I would visit it. For example, if the Turkish military invaded a country I was in and kidnapped me so that, by some strange turn of events, I found myself living in mainland Turkey and unable to leave, I would definitely consider a tour of Turkish occupied Cyprus.
But who cares about the politics? As said, I'm totally neutral regarding everything that led up to 1974 and everything that happened since.
It was a moot point, anyway. We covered only a tiny fraction of the west even on the first of the four days that we had a rental car. We didn't even get to Limassol or Larnaca (Nicosia, a wealthy functional inland city without too many old ruins) was not really on the itinerary for the family trip.
It was a moot point, anyway. We covered only a tiny fraction of the west even on the first of the four days that we had a rental car. We didn't even get to Limassol or Larnaca (Nicosia, a wealthy functional inland city without too many old ruins) was not really on the itinerary for the family trip.
Left and right
Coastal Cyprus is very user-friendly, hosting massive numbers of British expats. It is also a good place to have breakfast -- an English breakfast. And get this: at all but the greatest ripoff places, a full breakfast costs less than a cup of coffee. At Pinguino, right smack downtown in Kato Pafos, breakfast was €2.90 but coffee -- real coffee -- is €3 and up everywhere -- and even in good places with an espresso machines, if you order a coffee drink for €3 and up, they may make it based on instant coffee. A local Byzantine coffee is also more than an espresso in Italy (€1-1.50).
The British, despite their considerable charm and way about the first meal of the day, are a minor hazard on the streets. I was not aware that when people approach, one is expected to keep left. I thought those rules were restricted to cars, and that people behaved the same way as they do on the Continent in matters concerning pedestrian right of way. Not so. I wonder if anything has been written about this. Several times, I found that oncoming pedestrians effectively forced me to my right, where there was only a very small space to pass them, so that I had to flatten myself against a brick wall.
Less facetiously and by way of practical advice, the left-hand driving rules are a particular hazard for tired pedestrians, as we were on our first full day. Compared to constant hopping on and off city buses and road crossings with young children, it's probably much safer just to rent a car, it takes only a bit of mantra-murmuring ("left, left", "look right first"), and a very measured defensive approach and you'll be used to it in no time. Although many times I would get into the car the usual way and find myself staring puzzled for a split second at the apparent theft of the steering wheel.
My International Driving Permit had just expired, but as on most islands, renting a car wasn't a big deal, and was cheap. Sorry to say, it appears increasingly as if Estonia is the only European country that makes a big deal about this silly document, which is issued by a private club in the US yet which is necessary to validate your foreign government-issued license in the eyes of Estonian authorities.
To be continued in the next post - I promise.
To be continued in the next post - I promise.
