Dear Readers,
Cyprus is an interesting place. It is the only country in
the world outside of the US which seems to have a dearth of public
transportation. Before coming here, it never occurred to me that getting around
off campus might be an issue. But it kind of is. A lot.
After the job interview, we needed a place to go hang for a
couple weeks while we waited for the results of the interview. After poking
around and realizing that most accommodation on this island costs both an arm
AND a leg, I found us a nice apartment for rent on AirBnB. The place was three
times cheaper than all the other places I had found. Only one tiny problem: it
was on the south side of the island. But being a thinker-ahead, I decided it
was a good option since it was only about ten kilometers over the border, south
of Famagusta, a major city on the north side. I figured we would take the bus
from campus, head on over to Famagusta, spend a night there, then take a little
bus or something to the border, walk across and take another bus on the other
side. Wrong!
After a delightful evening lazing around town sightseeing
and enjoying our overpriced hotel, we were ready to head out bright and early
for our AirBnB and some sandy beach. Because we had so much luggage, we took a
taxi to the boarder and walked across, only to discover that this was the
border to the British-owned naval base, only open to British or EU citizens. We
are neither. The very nice officer informed us that we would have to turn back,
even though we could see our destination a few hundred meters in front of us.
We went back. We took another taxi to the bus station. We waited. We took a bus—all
the way back to Lefkosa/Nicossia where we walked across again, this time with
no hassle.
We walked to the bus station where we discovered we had just
missed the bus, and waited another three hours for the next one. When we finally
got to Paralimni, we found that there were no taxis because the taxi office had
closed two hours earlier. While standing around trying to think what to do, a
taxi happened by and took us to our accommodation.
Unless you are a Brit or an EU citizen, skip the other crossings and just take your trip from Lefkosa/Nicossia. It's a lot simpler.
Long story short, nine hours, three taxis, two border
crossings and two busses to go about 10 kilometers…and to collect another
travel adventure. No harm done. Plus, our stay at Marco’s lovely purple AirBnB
house was fantastic!
Stay tuned to read about our flash trip to the States and
back (5 days, 45 travel hours, and an amazingly packed adventure in Istanbul).
This is me, signing off…
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