Larnaka 28-31 March 2008
We were exhausted getting to Larnaka (a city on the southern coast of Cyprus). For those who don’t know (and I didn’t), Cyprus is not actually in the area of the Greek islands, but is south of Turkey, and closer to Turkey and Syria and Lebanon than to Crete. The climate isn’t lush and green like in Greece, but is closer to a desert climate (somewhat like the Great Plains, except with more hills). We took a taxi to our hotel and discovered that there was no one at the front desk. There was, however, a sign saying that we should go to the house next to the Lithos Bar (right next to the hotel). We must have looked very lost and out of place because some little old Cypriot woman came up to us and started speaking Greek. The only English words she knew were “yes” and “hotel.” Yes, hotel! She called someone out of the house (who turned out to be her grandson), and he checked us in. Apparently it’s a very family run business—they own the bar and the hotel, and will do anything and everything for their guests.
Nevertheless, we took a nice long nap, and then decided to walk to Larnaka. The hotel clerk had told us that there was a bus going between Oroklini and Larnaka. When reserving the hotel, we thought it was in Larnaka (which the address reinforced) yet upon our arrival discovered we were actually in a little village called Oroklini (apparently Larnaka is a region as well as a city of Cyprus) Nevertheless, we didn’t think that was a big deal. We could walk to Larnaka without a problem.
Two hours later in the occasional rain, my feet begged to differ. It takes approximately two hours to walk between the two places, and a great deal of it was either following the highway or going cross country between the patches of new suburban neighborhoods. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, and this January switched from the Cypriot pound to the Euro. I think this is the reason that real estate in Cyprus seems to be such a big industry now—Cyprus is developing very quickly. Nevertheless, I wish I could have observed this from inside instead of outside for 10 kilometers (okay, not that far away, but it was much further than I had anticipated and it threw me completely off guard). By the time we got to Larnaka we were both tired, a little wet and cranky, and had finished an entire rendition of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” We walked around the city some, got dinner, and then took a taxi back to the hotel (the last bus to Oroklini leaves at 5:45 in the afternoon).
The next morning we went downstairs to ask where a good place to have breakfast would be. The hotel owner (a very boisterous Greek type) told us that we would have trouble finding somewhere to have breakfast because it was a Saturday (Cypriots don’t seem that concerned with convenience). So, he called his wife in and told her to make breakfast for us. She made a fantastic breakfast, complete with scrambled eggs, halloumi (the Cypriot cheese, made from goat’s milk), village bread and honey, tea, and coffee. We did end up having to pay for it, of course. From breakfast we marched straight to the bus stop—we weren’t going to Larnaka by foot today, by golly!
According to the bus schedule, the bus to Larnaka leaves Oroklini at 10:30 Monday-Saturday. It was a Saturday, but by 11 it became abundantly clear that sometimes the Cypriots do whatever they feel like when it comes to the transportation system. So we walked to Larnaka again.
Trouble was, it was only upon arriving in Larnaka that we consulted our makeshift guide book (some pages ripped out of a over-large brochure in the tourism office) that we realized little to no tourist sights in Larnaka were open on a Saturday, and even fewer of those are open after 2 (we arrived at 1:30). Exhausted and defeated by the Cypriot gods, we got ice cream, walked on the beach with our shoes off, and wandered every little street of Larnaka we could find, until it was an acceptable time to eat dinner.
We went to this really cute restaurant right on the water and decided to get a meze. A meze is basically a quick overview of Cypriot cuisine for two or more people, and it’s usually 20 dishes or so. We got 3 kinds of sauce (tzatziki, tahini, and something else made with fish roe), French fries, olives, and then two miniaturized versions of all the classic Cypriot meat dishes—sausages, meat prepared this way and that way, breaded ground lamb, Greek salad, grape leaves stuffed with ground lamb and rice (my favorite!) and on and on. It was so so tasty and a really fun experience. It was literally hard to move afterwards due to all of the food that we had eaten.
The next morning we got up early—we were going scuba diving! The scuba diving instructor was due to pick us up at the hotel, but we didn’t realize that the clocks “sprung forward” that morning so we were actually an hour late to meet him, but it worked out okay anyway. We talked about all of the gear, suited up in wetsuits, flippers, and goggles, as well as lead weights (otherwise you would float too much). I think it’s impossible to look good in a wetsuit, by the way (at least it’s really really difficult). The feeling of being in a wetsuit is something like what you felt when you were little and your parents bundled you up for winter. All of your limbs stick out straight, and it’s difficult to bend anything; you just sort of shuffle around stiffly. Once in some shallow water, I discovered that although Cyprus itself is quite warm in March—I got so sun-burned blowing on it hurt—the water is not as warm. Fortunately the wetsuits do a lot to keep you from freezing. We practiced breathing with the oxygen tank and all that good stuff, and what to do in cases of emergency. We had to add a lot of extra lead weights to me to make me sink—apparently I’m a very buoyant person. Then we put our flippers on, which made it really hard for me to stand upright in the chest deep water, because the waves kept buffeting me, and with all that extra weight and flippers a feather could have knocked me over. The waves knocked me over a couple of times and the instructor had to pick me up again. That was fun.
We finally headed out into the water. It was so amazing! I got to see all of these fish up close, an armored car that had sunk (we were near a British military base), a sea urchin, some anenomes, etc. It was a very cool experience, being able to look and see all of this water above you, and yet still be able to breath. Every once in a while I would remember that I was underwater, and then I would freak out and hold my breath, but then I just forced myself to take deep breaths and everything was okay.
Scuba diving really takes a lot out of you, so we headed back to the hotel very tired and thirsty. We went to one restaurant in Oroklini, but the family that owned the restaurant was celebrating someone’s birthday, and so all of the extended family had come over and was hanging out in the restaurant. It was nice to see that kind of family togetherness, but we felt like we were intruding, so we went somewhere else. After lunch we climbed the hills that back up to Oroklini. Of course, once we were at the top of the hills it started to rain, and during the worst of it we scurried into a hunter’s hideout on the game preserve which turned out to be on the other side of the hill, but there were spider webs in there so I left as soon as the rain let up even a little bit.
That night for dinner I had a really great sea bass (mm, seafood) in a taverna, where one of the other customers had gotten rather inebriated and was loudly singing along to the Greek songs our waitress was playing off her computer. By the end of the night though, she must have gotten fed up with him, because she started playing a DVD of Shania Twain in concert. He got the picture and left with his friends soon after.
The next day we were determined to catch the bus to Larnaka, and then after a couple of hours catch a bus to a village called Lefkara which is supposed to be very picturesque. The bus did come after all (joy) and we made it to Larnaka. We first went to Saint Lazaros Church. After his resurrection by Christ, Lazarus made his way to Cyprus and became the first bishop of Kition, the ancient town where Larnaka now is. In the 6th century the Cypriots built St Lazaros church in his honor after discovering his (second) grave. You can still see his gravesite in the crypt of the church, but Lazarus’ remains are no longer there—I think the pope did something with them; I’m not entirely sure what. The inside of the church is beautiful—many many Byzantine style icons and everything was gilded in gold. There were a good number of Greek Orthodox women who came in and proceeded to pray to and kiss every single icon in the church (probably about 30 of them). I was amazed to see this, because that would be so foreign to worshipers in an American church.
Next we made our way to the ruins of the ancient city of Kition, which was inhabited since 1300 BC. 33 hundred years ago, there were people living and building temples in that very spot. That fact was just so hard to get into my head. I would have to live my life 165 more times to get to 3300 years. That’s a lot. The ruins were interesting to think about, but not that impressive.
From there we went to the bus stop, where the bus schedule we had said that we could catch the bus to Lefkara. We got there and waited…waited…no bus. The buses to Lefkara only run one a day on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and we were pretty sure it was Monday, so why wasn’t the bus there? It just never showed up. That soured the tone of our day a little because we were both excited about getting to see a little village. Instead, we took a bus to Kiti, a town about 7 kilometers away from Larnaka, where there was a church with famous mosaics. They were fairly pretty, but didn’t blow me away. We returned to Larnaka, did a little shopping, and caught the bus back to Oroklini.
In conclusion, I hate the public transportation in Cyprus. Everyone there has cars, so I guess they feel no need to pay attention to the public transportation since they don’t use it. If we had rented a car in Cyprus, then it would have been so much more interesting, and we would have gotten to see many more things. The stores and museums also keep very limited hours, even in comparison to continental Europe. The whole system in Cyprus seems very arbitrary, as though each individual person gets to decide what to do everyday. I did, however, enjoy the scuba diving, the warm weather, and the little village of Oroklini.
