The island of history

Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean with two countries – the republic of Cyprus and the Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus (which is formally recognised only by Turkey). It’s the third largest island in the Mediterranean and a really popular tourist destination with around 2.5 million tourists visiting it each year. Being so popular, my boyfriend and I also wanted to visit it. Since we’re not the greatest fans of lazing at the beach, we’ve decided to get to know the island in a slightly different way.  

The first shock we received, upon landing on the island, was the temperature with over 400C. Next was the car waiting for us – it was an automatic (which we’re not used to) and had the steering wheel on the right – since Cyprus was a British colony and everybody drives on the left side of the road. Still we got used to it quite quickly. We travelled the northern part of the island with on roads both nice and horrible (on the countryside), where we weren’t sure we’ll make it on the way back. After exploring most of the northern part, we wanted to cross the border to the Republic of Cyprus, to explore that as well, but we ran into trouble. The car insurance is not valid for the southern part, even if you pay extra for it. So the only choice we really had was, to leave the car at the border and rent another one to travel the rest of the island. We’ve been warned the public transport is neither cheap nor efficient, since there are really bad connections and you cannot visit most of the natural wonders of the island.

Cyprus has one of the most unusual border crossings in the world, for the capital city of Nicosia lays on both sides of the border. It is thus the only capital in the world, which is still divided into two parts of two different countries, divided by a wall and a few crossing points in between. The so called green line (as the border is called) separates the island since 1946 and is 180km long. When the division occurred, people left their homes and other facilities, so there are empty hotels and restaurants along the border. Life is somehow returning to these places, but still there are numerous empty houses to be seen. We can easily call Cyprus the island of history, because apart from the unusual border, you can also see many historical and cultural sights remembering many foreigners who ruled the island.

The people on the island cannot forget all the cruelties, which were caused by politics – as they say themselves. In 2003 they were able to, for the first time in 30 years, to cross the border and many were finally able to return to their homes. Sadly they found other people living there. The islanders believe they’ve lost all hope to join two parts of the island back. Thousands of people were killed at the time when they were fighting for territory and many mass graves of missing soldiers and civilians still haven’t been found. It’s hard to comprehend that many of them lived as refugees on their own island. Statistics show that each family lost at least one member, but the people try to live on, despite the painful memory, which will never go away and will live on in stories about the cruel old days. And for it all they blame the politics. Most people don’t blame each other for the horrid situation, for they say – it’s not the people’s fault.

Even when travelling on my holidays I can’t help myself but to find a cave, to get to know the underground of the country I’m visiting. The same goes for diving as well. The people here are said to love to laze around, so the tourist offer does not include all it could. Since I’m an active diver and caver I wanted to explore the island in a different way. Diving is quite popular, I must say, so there was no problem getting the gear and explore the depths. MY boyfriend and I took off with a diving guide and a few other tourists to have two dives at the depth of 40m. My expectations were high, as I looked forward to more underwater life, but I guess I have to come to terms that the Mediterranean is more or less the same whichever coast you dive from. You’ll get to see a few fish swim by and maybe an occasional octopus, even a ship wreck if you pay extra, and that’s about it. But the caves were a challenge. I had to spend quite some time online to find data about the biggest cave on the island, which is on the northern part and only 100m long. It’s puny compared to our caves back home, yet I still wanted to see it. We took the description we found online and looked for several hours having to stop many a time to ask the locals, who often didn’t even know about the cave. When we finally got to it, after a rough drive on bad dusty roads, the entrance was closed off with a short sign and a phone number. I dialled the number right away and a man answered, very happy to hear somebody is asking about the cave. He drove there and opened it. I loved to see every little corner of it and was delighted by the very bright colour of the rocks. The cave is also much warmer than our caves, with 150C, which is some 7 degrees warmer than what we’re used to. Apart from the mentioned sport activites on the island, Cyprus mostly has – as expected – water sports, like surfing, kiting… but we ran out of time for those.

 

Natural beauty of the island and the friendly people really left a good impression on us. Despite their natural laze and slow pace of life the people are really pleasant. Many say they have to get along, regardless which side of the border they live on – they’re on the same island. We also got to see the island in a different way, by exploring their underground and underwater beauty, for which a typical local would say, he’ll never explore it on his own.