When you find a person that is easy to travel with, they become your "go to" person when an adventure is on the horizon. For me, this has recently become my friend Annie. She is easy to get along with, spontaneous, and hilarious. She is so full of life and spirit, that when my father met her during a recent trip to Germany, he immediately nicknamed her "trouble." When I mentioned to Trouble that I was interested in visiting Cyprus, she jumped at the chance! While in Malaga, our dive instructor Elisha had mentioned that some of her favorite dives had been in Cyprus, one site at the wreck of the Zernobia in Larnaka (which unfortunately Annie and I weren't qualified to dive), and Amphitheater in Paphos. We decided that this would be the perfect trip to take in October over Columbus Day weekend, and we began to search for flights.
One major issue that had kept me from visiting Cyprus in the past was the travel to get there. I would either find no flights or really shitty flights were available during the short four day timeframe that encompassed the majority of my travels. Annie and I ran into a few roadblocks when researching flights, until one beautiful day in August when Annie had a breakthrough.
"I found a flight for us that is reasonably priced and gives us three full days in Cyprus!" Annie screamed into the phone. "The only issue is that we have REALLY bad flight times and a 12 hour layover on the way home in Belgrade, Serbia."
I pondered this for all of three seconds before realizing I had never been to Serbia before, and this could be a great opportunity to visit a new city.
"I am all in!"
And with that, we began to plan our trip.
Since I was about to leave for my three week "vacation" to Corsica, Annie took the reigns on planning our trip. She booked our hotel in Ayia Napa at a really affordable apartment rental called Margherita Apartments (It cost us less than $100 per person for three nights, and is in a fantastic location), and scheduled us for a dive on our second day in Paphos. For Serbia, she found a layover tour through trip advisor called Serbian Heritage Tours (which I will go into further detail in another post) that would pick us up at the airport, take us around Belgrade, and return us to the airport in time for our flight. The plan was set!
Annie and I live about an hour away from each other, so we planned on meeting at the airport. Our flight departed Frankfurt at 8pm, so we linked up about and hour and a half prior. With my first Starbucks pumpkin spice latte of the season in hand, we made our way through security and onto our plane with no issues, a huge feat for the two of us.
This trip had two difficult travel days. The first was getting there, which included a flight from Frankfurt at 8 pm, arriving in Serbia at 10pm. Then a two hour layover with an arrival into Larnaka at 0330. When we arrived, we were exhausted. All we wanted was to pick up our rental car and head to our hotel. Unfortunately there was a slight snafu in regards to our rental. Since we were traveling over the course of two days, Trouble made the mistake of scheduling our rental pickup for the day we left, not the day we arrived. Therefore we had no car waiting for us upon our arrival. It took us about an hour to find another company that had an affordable car for us to rent. In order to save money, and Annie's unwavering trust that as a helicopter pilot I would be able to navigate us off a map, we decided against purchasing a navigation system. This wouldn't have been an issue if Cyprus would grace the roads with street names, which they do not. This only proved difficult while attempting to navigate through cities and trying to find our hotel.
At 0430 we were on the road to Ayia Napa. While looking at a map of Cyprus, it doesn't look all that big and in reality, it isn't. You can drive from East to west in about two hours which is relatively quick. What we didn't expect was it taking an hour to get from Larnaka to Ayia Napa, and by 0530 we were exhausted. This is where having no navigation nor street signs came to be an issue. We couldn't find our hotel, and although there were a few places open, no one had a clue what we were taking about when asking directions to Margherita Apartments. It took us another hour to find the place. We checked in, dragged ourselves to bed, and said goodbye to the world.
Not wanting to waste a day sleeping, Annie forced us out of bed at 1000. This was to be our beach day, and we wanted as much time as we could get in the sun. We waddled down to the local bakery that was to be our source of nutrition for the next three days, and bought these lovely spinach and goat cheese pastries, baklava, and water. We packed up the car and headed down the road to the popular Nissi Beach.
Nissi Beach
After about two hours, we decided that we would begin the next part of our adventure. Annie had heard of a place called Cavo Greco near where we were staying that was known for beautiful cliffs that many adventurous travelers chose to dive from. Since we are both crazy, we decided that this would be the perfect way to spend our afternoon.
We arrived at the cliffs and they were incredible! Crystal clear blue water, sun drenched rocky cliffs, and a perfect area to jump from. The height of the cliffs is approximately 15m, or 50 feet. I had never jumped from heights so high, and knowing full well my ridiculous fear of heights, my palms began to sweat uncontrollably. We watched one young man jump, land perfectly, and resurface. That was proof enough to Annie and I that it would be safe and we geared up for our jumps. Annie went first and left me to take a picture of her.
Annie's free fall
She landed and it was my turn. There were quite a few people watching us by now, and the last thing I needed was to look like a wimp so I took a few steps back, took a deep breath, and ran for the edge. It was the longest fall EVER! It was so long, that you fell, realized you were still falling, had time to feel your stomach begin to drop, think "Holy SHIT, where is the water??" before you actually hit. I surfaced to find myself giggling with delight and screaming "Again! Again!!"
Me during my second jump
Found this spot on our hike back up the cliff
Laughing in the water after our first jump
The next morning was our dive day. We google searched the dive location the night prior and found that is was about a two hour drive to Paphos. We wanted to get SOME sightseeing in while on Cyprus, so we decided to leave a little early and make a few stops along the way. Our first stop was at the Archaeological site of Kourion.
One of my favorite stories about Cyprus is that of the Goddess of Love and Beauty, Aphrodite. She is said to have been born on one of the beaches near Paphos, rising from the foam on the sea. Her birth place is marked, so Annie and I drove to the beach of her birth, which was one of the most beautiful spots in Cyprus.
When we finally arrived at Coral bay in Paphos, we linked up with our diver instructor Ray (man, I think that was his name??). We had chosen to do the Amphitheater dive, and were really excited. We made sure that Ray understood the difficulties that Annie has with her buoyancy, and told him to be patient and enjoy the show. She can be very entertaining to watch sometimes. Annie warned him of my habit of singing songs from "The Little Mermaid" every time I enter the water, which is a very true statement. Really, how can you NOT sing "Under the Sea" while scuba diving??
I had just purchased an underwater case for my GoPro, and decided that my new career would be taking underwater photos. I literally took about 107, but I will not bore you with those. I have chosen just a few to share. However I will say that this dive site, although extremely lacking on underwater life due to the fact that up until recently people were still using dynamite to fish, was very cool. Due to the erosion on the rocks and limestone, it actually looks like there are underwater amphitheaters.
Underwater Selfie
Showing off our muscles
Annie Checking out the Amphitheater
After a very successful two dives, we bought some bread, hummus and baklava and headed to a nearby shipwreck to have a picnic and watch the sun set before heading back to the other side of the island.
For our final day in Cyprus, we decided to make use of our car one last time and drive through the mountains. We had heard from our dive instructor that there was a beautiful monastery called Kykkos that shouldn't be missed. We packed all our bags, loaded the car with our tour book in hand, and began our adventure. Since we had time, we looked up places to see along the way and discovered a small village that was known for having a church and a mosque that had been located right next to each other, where Greek Orthodox and Muslims had once lived in harmony.
If you are unaware, Cyprus is dived into two sections- the Greek area which is the majority of the island to the south, and the Turkish area to the north. The boarder is guarded by UN troops, and it is difficult to go from one to the other. During our drive, we were just miles away from the Turkish side and could see into it all the way to the northern coast. Up near the city of Nicosia in the hills, there is a painting of the Turkish flag. Anywho, we thought it would be a nice little detour to see this village, so we stopped for some photos and a coffee.
Look to the left and you can see the mosque
Fall is my favorite time of year, especially when the air is crisp and the colors of the leaves are changing. When I think of Cyprus I think of the beach and the ruins, never mountains with snow or changing foliage. So I was pleasantly surprised as we climbed up to the monastery.
A beautiful little village
I am not sure what I expected while visiting Kykkos, but I was taken aback by the beauty of the monastery. It was situated high on a hill in a remote area. It was quiet, magical, and awe inspiring. The monks up there make their own wine, which I will disappointingly say was not all that great, and pray in the traditional Greek Orthodox fashion. It was well worth the trip, and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Cyprus.
With our time in Cyprus coming to a close, Annie and I enjoyed one final dinner in Larnaka before heading to Serbia. I will tell you of our harrowing travels and tour of Belgrade next time.
