life in a non-existent state of being [part I]

Q: What do you call a place that doesn’t exist?

A: Northern Cyprus.

Ok, ok, Northern Cyprus exists…physically, that is. But, in the world consciousness, it does not. Turkey is the only country in the whole entire world that recognizes Northern Cyprus as an independent political entity. People born in Cyprus are given a North Cypriot passport and a Turkish passport because no country but Turkey will accept a North Cypriot passport. Heck, the only ways to get into Northern Cyprus are by plane or ferry from Turkey’s mainland…or by crossing the border in Nicosia/Lefkosia/Lefkosa [city name depends on your language/time in history].

The history of Cyprus—north + south—is an interesting but tumultuous one, which has served to create the current situation: the construction of a U.N. buffer zone, known as the Green Line, splitting the island into two provinces, only one of which is recognized by the world. While relations between the two sides have historically been poor and tension runs high, there currently seems to be a general acceptance of the situation. Sure, the older generation holds on to the anger and there are memorials on both sides recalling memories of the bloody battles that caused the U.N. intervention in 1967. However, the younger generation doesn’t seem to be nearly so tied to that history. It’s reminds me a lot of South Africa, actually—there, much of the younger generation is “over” apartheid because it’s not their history, they are ready to move on because they have their own problems to deal with.

These days, in Cyprus, much of the separation between the two sides seems to be, to the outsider, merely a formality. It used to be such that if you had a stamp from Northern Cyprus in your passport there was no way you could cross the border to the south and Greece would oftentimes deny you entry to the mainland. Nowadays, people from the North cross the border daily for work and having a stamp from Northern Cyprus is virtually no problem at all. While visiting, it seemed to me that the idea of bringing the two sides together is not nearly as important to the public as it used to be/governments make it seem. Since the failure of the Annan Plan awhile back, efforts towards reunification of the island have been generally stagnant.

So, for much of the past week Ryan and I were in the Bermuda Triangle of the Mediterranean a.k.a. KKTC—Kuzey Kibris Turk Cumhuriyet—or Northern Cyprus. We were living in this state of "existence limbo" for four days, living like ghosts doing things that never happened and seeing things that didn’t exist! At least, that was our running joke. I must say, if you're forced to not exist, Northern Cyprus is a beautiful place to do it.

Now, one of the questions that arises in disappearing into Northern Cyprus concerns the implementation of law. Say, for instance, we were to kill a man in Northern Cyprus. Well, given the country's status in the world, did we really ever commit the crime? I mean, for all intents and purposes, Northern Cyprus does not exist. Who would prosecute us? Not Turkey because Northern Cyprus is not a part of Turkey—it’s independent. Not the EU because they don’t recognize it as a state. And if we were to leave, would it be as if it never happened? Basically, if Northern Cyprus is invisible, its inhabitants must be too, right?

I guess I could look up the answer to those questions, but it's more fun to go through the mental exercise, come up nil, and have a joke that can be implemented constantly...which Ryan and I did. Constantly.

It would actually be pretty cool if that happened…all of a sudden, you cross a border and you disappear, only to re-materialize when you re-enter the recognized world? In reality, however, the re-materialization process is entirely underwhelming. When you cross the border into the southern region of Cyprus the police officer—note, I did not say border official—sees “United States of America” or “EU” on your passport and doesn’t even open it up. You don’t get a stamp when you enter The Republic of Cyprus because, to them, you aren’t crossing a border; to them, Northern Cyprus rightfully belongs to the Republic of Cyprus.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself! Re-materialization didn’t happen until Day 3! We’ve gotta start from the beginning…

Introduction and Day 1: Sunday May 20, 2007

The issues surrounding Cyprus make it quite difficult to get any consistent and trustworthy information concerning traveling to/from/within/across borders. For the two weeks prior to our trip, Ryan and I researched everything from hotels to rental cars to public transportation to food to footwear to laundry to blah blah…only to arrive there throwing our hands in the air and hoping everything worked out.

Cyprus is not a cheap place. On the northern side the official currency is the Turkish Lira while the southern side uses the Cypriot Pound. However, British pounds, euros and dollars are also generally accepted and you can use a combination

of currencies to pay for things. For instance, you can pay for a cab ride with lira, euros, and dollars all at once. It is remarkably confusing and always an adventure trying to figure out correct amounts to pay.

We realized the difficulty of this money business before we even arrived. I emailed 25 different hotels to do price comparisons and got myself so confused between quotes in lira, British pounds, euros, and dollars that I nearly gave myself a migraine. It wasn’t much better for Ryan in his research on rental cars. In the end, however, we booked ourselves a room at a great little hotel in Kyrenia (Girne), called Hotel Sempati. It’s a small world—as it turns out, the hotel manager is the cousin of my dad’s Cypriot friend!

So, around 10:45 am on Sunday Ryan and I met at ASTI to catch the HAVAS bus to the airport. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time, got our tickets, and headed towards customs. This was not as easy as it sounds—Esenboga Airport has been beautifully remodeled recently but, my goodness, the signage inside is absolutely horrendous! Ryan and I managed to go downstairs, upstairs, in circles before we had to ask someone…who pointed to an alcove right next to the check-in desk. That’s pretty stellar for two Fulbright Grant recipients. A real kick in the pants. Geniuses, that’s what we are. We’re great. I’m just going to keep blaming the signs. Seriously, though…they were wretched.

We ended up having a lot of time so we took a tour of the DutyFree store, which resulted in a package of cigars for Ryan. Then we got some coffee…which almost made me puke. It was the worst stuff in the world. Outside of Turkish Coffee the Turks have really missed the good coffee boat. Also, getting iced coffee, i.e. ice + coffee, is impossible. I’m always tricked into trying it when I see it on a menu…and then I want to kill myself for giving it yet another chance. It always has to have ice cream or whipped cream or some ridiculousness in it...and never ice! and sometimes not even coffee! Ok, end rant.

Eventually it was time to catch the plane so we headed towards the gate. To get into the airport you have to go through a security system and to get into each individual gate you have to go through another security check. It’s pretty intense.

As we sat and waited for the boarding call, some lady came up and asked us to take a survey about our time in Turkey. Of course, we aren’t just tourists here so the questions about the amount of money we spent and how long we stayed in places were kind of difficult to answer. Also, the questions like, “is there anyone traveling with you from whom you have paid for travel for with” were nearly incomprehensible. But, we had a good time making up answers.

The flight is a short one—one hour from Ankara—and mostly consists of going up and coming down. Despite the shortness of the trip, the airline insisted on giving us a snack, which had to be shoved down the throat in approximately three minutes. This was a difficult task for Ryan, who is an uberslow eater.

There are something like five or six airports in Cyprus, but only one in Northern Cyprus--Ercan. Turkey is the only country that has flights to Ercan, so people coming from Europe often have a “complimentary stay” in Istanbul or Ankara. Otherwise, they fly into the south and drive to the north. Tourist season on the island is just starting to gear up, but flights from Turkey are currently still a steal.

When we arrived, we had to go through customs. At that point, we had thought that having a KKTC stamp in your passport meant a big NO! to crossing the border. Consequently, we politely asked the passport control fella NOT to stamp our passports but to stamp a piece of paper--a process they are not unfamiliar with. Lo and behold, the guy says "sure, i'll stamp a piece of paper" and then proceeds to stamp our passports.

Can I tell you how pissed/dismayed we were? Man, we were totally pissed and dismayed! We badmouthed the guy while we waited for our bags, got over it [kind of], and met the reps from the hotel who drove us the hour to Girne.

The fellas who drove us to the hotel were very nice and we talked a lot. They liked that we spoke Turkish. One guy was Kurdish and when I told him my family was originally from Diyarbakir he tried to speak Kurdish with me. Of course, I don’t know Kurdish, but he insisted that “there are no Turks in Diyarbakir” and a few days later told me to “ask [my] dad some more about whether or not we are Kurdish.” No surprise, it’s a major part of his identity and he thought it should be of mine as well. However, I don’t think my dad knows much better than I what, if any, Kurdish influence there is in our bloodline. Not that it matters to me; quite frankly, I think everyone is a mutt...and that's a good thing.

The hotel was wonderful. It was shaped like a crescent to give each room a sea view on one side and a mountain view on the other. It also had hot water, which thrilled Ryan who has been taking freezing cold three minute showers for the past nine months. He reveled in the hot shower twice a day for long periods of time.

We arrived late in the afternoon but got ourselves a little sun time, hanging out by the pool for a few hours.

After our basking for awhile, we relished in our hot showers and got a recommendation for dinner from the desk—Niazi's in Girne.

The place was hopping; it’s a prime spot and we had to wait awhile before they opened the upstairs room. The place is known for its “Full Kebap”, which consists of a series of 15-20 mezes and a series of meat dishes. It was quite delicious and a wonderful introduction to what would become my obsession for the next few days: Cypriot yogurt. Oh lordy lordy that stuff is out-of-control. It’s not Greek yogurt and it’s not Turkish yogurt. It’s this distinct flavor that is a-maze-ing…in my opinion, at least. We also had our first slice of fried haloumi [yum!] and the “famous” seftali kebap.

sidenote: in the taxi ride to the restaurant, the driver talked about the seftali kebap. In Turkish, seftali means peach, so I asked him if it involved peaches. He laughed at me. I’m sorry to say, no, it doesn’t involve peaches in the slightest. It’s good though.

After dinner we took a little walk around the city center and found the Icon Museum, which looked quite pretty/haunting in the darkness. While it looked nice, we never did go back to see what was inside, even when we traipsed around the city in the daylight. After our "digestion walk" we got a cab home, watched some BBC [thank you thank you for some English language television] and hit the sack.

And that will end Introduction and Day 1. Less writing, more pictures to come with subsequent days. Ok, well, maybe not less writing, but definitely way more pictures.

But, just to get them out of the way, I’ll make my general comments about traveling to/in Cyprus now. If any of you are considering visiting Cyprus, you should really think about doing it in the spring or early autumn. Overall, we lucked out and I’m glad we went when we did—the middle of summer would have been miserable in terms of both weather and other tourists. The weather was beautiful; we had warm breezy days and cool nights. The hotel was wonderfully calm, primarily filled with older couples from the U.K. who have made Hotel Sempati their regular haunt over the year [I can't recommend the place enough]. Apparently, in the heart of summer, it’s blazingly hot 24/7 and the place [i.e. Cyprus] is overrun with British tourists.

In terms of communication, you also won’t have to worry. Cyprus is an easy place. It’s actually quite funny because most people speak decent English but they have a British accent. Ryan and I were particularly well received, however, because we spoke Turkish. Granted, that meant we were continually answering the same five questions of where we come from and what we were doing. But, whatever. I actually felt much more comfortable about my speaking and understanding of Turkish in Cyprus. It was strange, but a nice boost as I’ve been generally depressed by my continously poor Turkish skills.

As a previous British colony, cars are driven on the left side of the road in both the north and south. It’s really to your advantage to rent a car there and automatics are available, though more expensive than manuals. There is public transportation that is very easy to manage, but the flexibility of having a car can’t be rivaled. Traffic is a cinch and you can have a more leisurely time with a car. Ryan and I only rented for a day when we went to the south and did manage to do a lot of exploring without a car on the north. I’d still recommend it--it's cheap [relatively. I won't lie, getting gas is a hemorrhage], easy, and nearly every hotel has a car hire service.

There is a lot of history on the island, but seeing the sites is not overwhelming. Ryan and I decided that Cyprus is a great place to go for a week—you will have plenty of time to leisurely explore the sites and plenty of time to also relax on the beach. If you're bored lazing around you can go see stuff and vice versa. People are friendly and helpful. It's a very safe place and fine for a woman traveling alone. We were only there for 3.5 days and a couple more would have been perfect, but I think we did the place justice.

More to come...just you wait!