Random Rambles

We spend our first four nights in Kenya at the Wildebeest Eco Camp. Its leafy environs are on the outskirts of gritty, crime-ridden Nairobi, in the posh neighbourhood of Karen.

Karen is named after Danish author Karen Blixen, whose farm was nearby. As a long-time lover of all things Danish, I smugly boast about reading Out of Africa years before the Redford-Streep film came out.

We enjoy visiting the homes of writers, so hire a driver take us there.

Our single foray into central Nairobi is to the Nairobi National Museum.

Finally, we take delivery of our rental vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, and head north out of town.

We name our new wheels Jambo. This is Swahili for ‘hello’.

There’s always something interesting being transported by motorcycle in these countries. This one is carrying a load of cornstalks.

From time to time we pass though lively market towns.

Meru National Park is our first destination. We are on a bit of a Born Free kick, having recently re-read this classic. Meru is where Elsa was returned to the wild and where she was buried.

One day, we try to drive to Elsa’s grave site, but are forced to turn back by the badness of the road, even for our 4X4 vehicle.

Kenya Wildlife Services have recently changed the way park fees and accommodation are paid for. It’s very confusing. (Even the park employees are stymied.) Only on the third day of our stay do we succeed in paying our bill, after hands-on tutoring from a pair of park rangers, Salim and Deka.

A major difference between this trip and previous self-drive trips in Africa: this time, we have a full-size 4X4 vehicle. Kind of a necessity in Kenya.

One issue with Jambo is that he sucks up fuel like a – well, like a two-ton-plus SUV. Fuel is around 2.15 CDN$ per litre here.

We run low while in the southern part of the park, so visit a village just outside the gate for a top-up.

Unlike game parks in southern Africa, Kenyan game parks are emphatically not set up for individual travelers. There are no maps. Everything is geared toward tour groups spending astronomical amounts

The animals are what it’s all about. We plan on spending lots of time on game drives.

We come across an elephant by surprise around a bend. It makes a bluff charge, with indignant huffing and ear-flapping.

Our accommodation is a banda, a sort of simple cottage. It has running water, but no electricity. There are no cooking facilities. (We bring our own.) The screens are full of holes.

It’s unfenced, so all kinds of critters wander around at night, including hippos.

It does have an outdoor cooking area, caged to keep out the local wildlife.

The resident vervet monkeys are able to slip in through a gap between the roof and the cage walls. This one filched a carrot and a cucumber. I got the cucumber back.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Africa has a lot of plants that grow aggressive spikes. Which then fall to the ground.

These can easily pierce the bottom of a flipflop when stepped on. I speak from experience!

Where has the time gone? After coming back from Cyprus in February, it was good to be home. But it’s already time to be dusting off the travelling shoes.

Among our activities: visiting the farm of our friends Eric and Katti near Ottawa and hoisting a few baby goats.

In April, we go to Brazil for a couple of weeks. Strictly a family visit. We eat a lot of meat.

Our nephew has a cabanha, that is, a stable where he trains horses for gaucho-style competitions. Sort of like a rodeo.

Back in Canada, most of our time is spent at the cottage.

Maria played lots of pickleball in several locations, including the courts of our condo.

Traditional bicycle trip to Prince Edward County with our friends Pete, Judith, John, and Diane. (John and Diane missing from photo.) This takes place around my birthday in September.

It’s a good excuse to visit wineries and enjoy some fine food.

Sight or Insight of the Day

And they’re off! We depart in the middle of the night for a flight from Ottawa to Newark. From which we take a taxi to JFK. After a 14-hour flight, we arrive in Nairobi.

Our first stop is the Nairobi Giraffe Centre.

These people work ro conserve the nearly-extinct Rothschild’s giraffe.

You can hand-feed them with the provided giraffe chow. Which looks a lot like rabbit food.

Everyone gets into the act.

Gratuitous giraffe joke: Some giraffes can grow up to 18 feet.

But most only have 4.

After problems with our blog software, it’s time for an update. Long overdue, in fact.

We visit the ruins of Salamis, near Famagusta.

Among the ruins are a theatre, several baths, and a public toilet that seats 44 people. A lot of the local villages have used the ruins as a source of building materials.

We enjoy the sunny weather ahead of our fast-approaching return to Canada.

Here and there are the remains of mosaics and frescos. This one is about the myth of Hylas, our guide book tells us.

Next, we visit the Monastery of Saint Barnabas.

Barnabas was a Cypriot Jew who became an ealy Christian convert and accompanied Saint Paul on some of his travels. Nearby is an underground crypt that once held his remains, so we’re told.

The monastery was abandoned after the Turkish invasion of 1974. Now, the interior of the church is an icon museum.

Our next stop is the ancient city of Enkomi.

It’s a sobering fact that this was once a thriving walled city, mentioned in the El Amarna letters in Egypt and in documents from Ugarit on the coast of Syria. Today, little remains besides a pile of stones in a field full of sheep that the wind whistles through. It’s barely even signposted – you have to go looking for it.

Back in Cyprus proper, we spend three nights in Pernera, a place that is normally humming with tourist activity. At the tail end of January, it’s eerily deserted. We are surrounded by shops, restaurants, and hotels, all closed. Even the ATMs are non-functioning at this time of year. There are more stray cats around than people.

Saint Nicholas Church is right by the sea. You can walk right in.

Down the coast is Green Bay, a popular dive spot in the summer. It’s rough and cold at this time of year, though.

That doesn’t stop Maria from going in for a snorkel. Fortunately, we find a wetsuit left outside a shuttered dive shop. Maria borrows it for the duration of our stay in Proteras.

At the southeast corner of Cyprus is the scenic Cape Greco.

Among the visitors is a man who resembles Russia’s bloody-handed dictator Vladimir Putin, bare chest and all. It’s probably not him, considering one of the party is wearing a Ukrainian flag T-shirt.

We’ve really enjoyed our time here. Good food, good wine, good people, lots of interesting things to see. It’s difficult to imagine Cyprus as an international hotspot.

There doesn’t seem to be any easy solution for the island’s troubles. Official Greek Cyprus wants its land back without making any concessions to the Turkish-speaking minority. Turkey, in its current Neo-Ottoman Empire mood of aggressive expansion, is unwilling to vacate the third of the island it invaded and occupied illegally. Meanwhile, the South enjoys the free-running taps of European Union cash, while Northern Cypriots are fated to be an appendage of Turkey.

Sight or Insight of the Day

After a few more days back in Larnaca, we begin our journey home. Our route is Larnaca – London, London – Toronto, and Toronto – Ottawa, returning to freezing temperatures and drifts of snow.

The first thing we see when touching down on arrival in Cyprus is a salt lake full of flamingos beside Larnaca Airport. The salt lake dries up in the summer, so the flamingos are strictly winter visitors.

And it’s also the last thing we see as we drive Zeno back to the rental office at the same airport. We’ll miss Cyprus.

From Kyrenia, we drive to the end of what we call the ‘tail’ of Cyprus, shown here in a red circle.

It’s very scenic. Little traffic, especially at this time of year.

From time to time, we come across small Orthodox churches that have been repurposed into something else (because most of the Greek Cypriots fled to the south in 1974).

Another castle. This one is Kantara Castle.

From the peak, you can see the Mediterranean to the North and to the South.

The coast is lovely on a sunny day.

As we approach the tip of the peninsula, we see signs to beware of the feral donkeys that inhabit this area.

We come prepared with a bag of carrots. They’re obviously used to getting handouts. The younger ones are fuzzy and irresistibly cute.

Passing through Dipkarpaz, the last town of any size.

It’s very fertile around here – lots of lush green fields.

We spend a few nights in a stone house on the waterfront.

It’s so close to the sea, the sound of the waves can be heard all night.

Heading back down the coast, we stop briefly at Golden Beach.

It would be nicer if there wasn’t so much garbage around. After fifty years of Turkish occupation, North Cyprus looks very much like Turkey. This includes the cavalier attitude most developing countries have to living amid mountains of trash.

Cyprus proper, on the other hand, looks like Europe.

The road leading down to Famagusta Bay is bright with flowers. Again, there is almost no traffic.

Famagusta is where we spend the next few days. It’s a walled city, full of historic buildings. Like the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque, formerly known as the Cathedral of St Nicholas.

It’s interesting to speculate that there would be a lot more of these churches-turned-into-mosques if the Muslim armies had not been defeated at the Siege of Vienna or the Battle of Tours, to name just two pivotal events.

We stay at a location a few minutes walk from the Old Town.

One of many churches that didn’t survive is St.George’s Cathedral.

The wall surrounding the city was built by the Lusignans and later improved by the Venetians. A major fortification is the Othello Castle.

(The term ‘Othello Castle’ is a bit of fabricated tourist razzmatazz. In the play, Othello’s arrival point is described simply as ‘A Sea-port in Cyprus’. )

Sight or Insight of the Day

I remember years ago reading The World Without Us, a book that describes what the world will look like when humans are gone. There is a section in that book on the neighbourhood of Varosha to the south of Famagusta.

This was a beachy holiday spot until the Turkish invasion of 1974. The Greek Cypriot inhabitants fled for their lives, leaving behind a ghost town.

Until very recently, this was fenced with barbed wire and strictly off-limits to tourist and civilians.

Now, it has become a macabre tourist attraction.

There is a UN post keeping an eye on things.

The bizarre abandoned resorts go on for miles down the coast.

We both agree we’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like traveling in time to 1974. We take many photos, but you get the picture with this limited selection.

Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, that is.

At last, we get some sunny weather in Nicosia.

We get a good view from the top of the Shacolas Tower.

An example of the sectarian jumble that is Cyprus: this is an old Greek Orthodox church that was converted to a mosque. Because it’s in Nicosia proper, it no longer serves as a mosque. (At least there’s nothing in it. We peeked.)

And north of the Green Line, we see this 13th-century Gothic church (the church of St. Catherine) that has been converted into a mosque since the Ottoman conquest. (We’ll see more of these in the north.)

Traveling between Cyprus and the soi-disant Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus involves less John le Carré-esque intrigue than we thought. Even the fact that we couldn’t find Zeno’s registration papers is not a problem. All we need is temporary auto insurance for the TRNC.

Because it’s not a real country, the poor North Cypriots don’t even get an abbreviated country code on their license plates like everyone else. It’s blank.

People born here are eligible for a Northern Cypriot passport. To save them from being completely un-persons, they are also issued with a Turkish passport.

One cultural trait that the North Cypriots have clearly adopted from Turkey is the love of gigantic flags.

Kyrenia is a harbour town with an old town full of narrow lanes and a big fortress.

The fortress has a few museums in it.

Our hotel is just outside of the old town.

One day, we drive up, up, up, past a Turkish military base to St. Hilarion Castle.

There’s an apocryphal story that this castle inspired Walt Disney’s evil-queen-in-Snow-White castle.

From up here, you get a thrilling view of Kyrenia far below.

There’s a viewing platform at the highest point. Visitors have made a habit of attaching their used COVID masks to the railings. Why this would enter the head of any sane, normal person is utterly beyond me. We are definitely back in the third world here in the TRNC.

On the way back to town, we visit the ruins of Bellapais Abbey.

The surrounding village of Bellapais is also nice to wander in.

We see these in towns and villages throughout Cyprus: public fountains built by the British, with the initials of the ruling monarch at the time.

I’m delighted to learn that Laurence Durrell, a now-unfashionable writer, once lived here. We track down his house.

He wrote ‘Justine‘, the first book of ‘The Alexandria Quartet‘ here.

It’s on Aci Limon street, which means ‘bitter lemons’.

Sight or Insight of the Day

One thing we really admire about both the real Cyprus and the TRNC: they both have maps aplenty!

They’re free, and of excellent quality.

In every other country we’ve been to so far on this trip, actual paper maps that you can hold in your hand have been difficult or impossible to find for love or money. Apparently, only old people still use them.

We spend four days in Nicosia, Cyprus’s delightful capital. Four mostly rainy days. But it’s been so long since we’ve experienced rain, it’s still a novelty.

The reason this island has an inland capital is because of the never-ending Muslim raids against its established coastal towns in the 7th and 8th century. Its main feature is the star-shaped Venetian fortifications surrounding the old town.

Or maybe its main feature is that it is divided, former Berlin-style, into a Greek zone and a Turkish zone by the Green Line.

As in the former Berlin, it’s no contest about who the good guys and the bad guys are. Cyprus is, well Cyprus, an EU member and modern democratic state. The self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of North Cyprus only exists because of a Turkish military invasion in 1974.

These days, it’s easy to go back and forth as a visitor. People are not machine-gunned while trying to cross the border, as people were who insisted on fleeing the East German communist utopia.

But the buffer zone is now made up of decaying and abandoned buildings. When you cross from the lively and colourful Greek side into the Turkish side, things are dark, gloomy, and uninviting, for the most part.

(We are happy to report that there’s more to the North than this.)

Our accommodation is in the heart of the Old Town. We have few photos of the city because it rains a lot.

Like most places in Cyprus, as soon as you put a shovel in the ground, you hit some ruins.

In a café where we stop for coffee, we find our table is already occupied.

He soon finds a better parking spot.

We visit some superb museums. The Cyprus Museum is probably the country’s best. Among the more memorable exhibits are these terra cotta figures from Agia Irini, This is only half of them. The other half are in a museum in Sweden.

In fact, most of the museums we’ve seen here have been superb, even the smaller ones.

Other notable museums we drop in on to get out of the rain:

• The Leventis Museum, in a magnificent old house, mostly about the history of Nicosia
• The Centre of Visual Arts and Research, or CVAR, describes the history of Cyprus as seen by non-Cypriots
• The Cyprus Motorcycle Museum, full of – surprise! – motorcycles
• The National Struggle Museum, interesting, if not exactly objective

And a few others. Eventually, the sun makes an appearance and we spend an afternoon in North Nicosia.

Sight or Insight of the Day

While visiting the excellent CVAR, we recognize the subject of a painting done in the early twentieth century.

We saw the Paphos Gate in the town walls earlier the same day. This is what it looks like these days.

It’s hard to see, but the middle horizontal strip is now a concrete bunker (complete with gun slits), because it faces the Turkish side across the street.

A patch of wet weather sets in. We backtrack a bit to the the town of Episkopi. One place we visit is the Cyprus Wine Museum, where we get tips on possible wineries to visit on our trip.

We also visit the the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates.

This was part of the ancient city of Kourion. We’re sure Apollo would be tickled to learn about the space program named after him.

Another place we visit is the Kourion Museum. It’s in the former house of George McFadden, an American archeologist who did a lot work in ancient Kourion. In fact, when we arrive, the very friendly woman in the ticket office is chatting with an elderly woman who knew Mr. McFadden personally.

Probably the most touching exhibit is that of some skeletons found in the ‘earthquake house’ in Kourion. The remains are those of a 25-year-old male and a 20-year-old female who is cradling an 18-month-old infant. The protective position speaks volumes about the last moments of these three souls.

We also stop at Paleopaphos, which means ‘old Paphos’.

(There are four Paphoses: this is ‘old Paphos’. (Which is in a town with the modern name of Kouklia.) The ancient ruins we visit in Paphos are Neopaphos, or ‘new Paphos’. The beachy part of town we stay in is called Kato Paphos, or ‘lower Paphos’. The actual centre of the modern town of Paphos is called ‘Ktima’. Go figure.)

Anyway, since time immemorial, this place has been famous for the worship of Aphrodite.

A medieval building on the site displays some of the objects found here.

In this museum is an interesting sarcophagus decorated with a scene of Odysseus escaping from the Cyclops’s cave.

From Paphos we drive inland to the Troodos Mountains. This is where a lot of the country’s wineries are located.

I already have some favourite local grape varietals: Maratheftiko and Opthalmo. I know I won’t find these in Canada, so I’m enjoying generous amounts while we’re here.

These mountains are in the middle of the island. It’s cold up here. We drive through Prodromos, the highest town in Cyprus.

Omodos is in the middle of wine country. There are few tourists at this time of year.

So the local sights are uncrowded.

Our lodging for the night is in the small village of Vasa.

There must be a thousand villages like this in Cyprus. They’re unbelievably quaint. And half deserted.

The only problem is driving through them. Some passages are so narrow, we dread meeting another vehicle coming the other way.

In Cyprus wine country, you see these giant ceramic containers everywhere. They remind us of Georgian qvevri.

Sight or Insight of the Day

What is it with cats and the Internet? According to Wikipedia:

‘ThoughtCatalog has described cats as the “unofficial mascot of the Internet.”‘

We certainly see our share of adorable kitties and can’t resist a feline photo-op. This guy was snoozing on a seat in an Omodos café. He didn’t bat an eye while we ordered coffee and cake, consumed it, and left.

So says Cassio in Othello.

We are really enjoying our time in Cyprus. The people, the food, the history, the weather. We’ve always had a bias towards small countries. We like their lack of inflated big-country bumptiousness.

One of our first stops on the road is Choirokoitia, a neolithic settlement.

Funny story: to get there, we drive to the quaint village of Agios Iakovos Persis, then walk a few kilometres along a trail to the site itself.

When we get there, we have to jump a fence in order to get in. We then walk down to the ticket office and sheepishly buy two tickets. We are busted by the attendants, but they admire our athleticism more than they condemn our skirting of the rules. Lucky us.

There are many of these sites in Cyprus. Early on – over 10,000 years ago – people from the Near East daring the Mediterranean in small boats bumped into Cyprus and decided to stay.

Driving further along the south coast, we visit another ancient town, Amathus.

Which is like a warm-up to prepare us for our next stop, the seaside ruins of Kourion.

On our way to Paphos, we drive though the British Sovereign Base Area of Akrotiri. These areas exist because of local political complications (there are few political phenomenon in this part of the world that are not complicated.) The base housing looks like it belongs more in Leicestershire than in Cyprus.

Paphos is so enjoyable, we extend our stay to five days. This is the view out of our hotel window.

Paphos, of course, has its own extensive ruins.

This is a mosaic of Theseus and the Minotaur. Very clever, the labyrinth-like concentric circles.

(This house belonged to the Proconsul of Cyprus – that is, the Roman governor.)

Like most places, there are many cats here. Mostly very friendly, like this one.

We like to imagine the thousands of people that thronged these streets two millennia ago.

Another Paphos attraction are the so-called ‘Tombs of the Kings‘. (No actual kings were buried here.)

I’ve always liked cyclamen blossoms. They remind me of flaming comets.

For Maria’s birthday, by special request we spend the day beach-hopping.

The beaches are wonderfully uncrowded at this time of year.

As usual, I read while Maria swims. The beach is covered with stone towers that people make. What cultic purpose they serve is unknown.

Sight or Insight of the Day

There are a lot of Russians here in Cyprus.

There were a lot in Egypt, as well. It’s no surprise that a brutal dictatorship would have no bones about admitting the citizens of a fellow brutal dictatorship for some fun in the sun. Cyprus, however, is an EU member and a liberal Western democracy. It doesn’t look good to be so welcoming to Russians and their blood money these days.

But Cyprus has hitched its star to the Putin regime. Unlike Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the Czech Republic, who have barred Russians from the country, the place is still heaving with Ruskies.

New year, new country. We fly EgyptAir from Sharm el Sheikh to Cairo to Larnaca in Cyprus.

It’s a relief to be in a non-Muslim country for the first time in months. There’s a palpable sense of freedom to do, be, or say absolutely anything you can imagine. In other places, there is always the oppressive sense of having to rein yourself in.

Larnaca is the perfect place to arrive. It’s a small city, easy to get around. We undergo culture shock at the cleanness and orderliness of the place, the absence of trash and crumbling infrastructure. Every alleyway in the area we stay in seems to lead to the sea.

We find a street with an auspicious name.

Larnaca started life as Kition in the 13th century BC. These are the first of many ruins we see.

Here’s the Church of Saint Lazarus in Larnaca. Apparently, Lazarus ended up in Cyprus after being raised from the dead by Jesus. He eventually died here.

In town, we visit the small but excellent Pierides Museum. We learn that the replica historic ceramics in their shop are made locally. We drop in at the Studio Ceramics gallery.

On the way to Limassol, we stop by the sea in several places. These white rocks are near a place called Governor’s Beach.

I would name them the ‘Moby Dick Rocks’.

Sight or Insight of the Day

We plan on driving ourselves around Cyprus. To that end, we acquire our latest rental car, a peppy Ford Fiesta.

He’s named after one of Cyprus’s eminent citizens, the Stoic philosopher Zeno.

Winding down in both senses: as in, ten days of doing nothing in one spot over the holidays, and also counting down our remaining time in Egypt.

Dahab is a good place to spend Christmas and New Year. It’s very touristy. Which means lots of harrassing merchants and haranguing tour vendors. But also lots of restaurants and cafés.

We have a rooftop room in a small hotel in a quiet part of town. (I wouldn’t quite call it a penthouse.) One side faces the mountains.

The other side faces the Gulf of Aqaba. You can see Saudi Arabia across the water.

The days turn into a satisfying routine. We get croissants for breakfast from the German bakery down the street. Maria goes swimming. I sit in the sun and read. We go out for dinner. Rinse and repeat.

We break up this idyll of idleness with a couple of day trips. One is a snorkeling excursion.

It’s not very pleasant. It’s disorganized. (Chaotic, actually.) All of the equipment is unsafe and falling apart. We are pushed from one site to the other with no explanations. There’s usually trash everywhere.

When we get to do any actual snorkeling, it’s great – the Blue Hole and Ras Abu Galum are rich in corals and fish. But I had visions of tranquilly floating around on our own. Nope – we’re supposed to follow a ‘guide’.

Thankfully, Maria had a good time.

I enjoyed our second excursion much more. For one thing, it is entirely self-organized. We want to go to St. Catherine’s Monastery. We are not interested in departing in the middle of the night to ‘see the sunrise over Mt. Sinai’ – why anyone would want to do such a thing is beyond me. We just need a drive there and back.

By great good fortune, Maria makes the acquaintance of Ahmed, a Dahab taxi driver who’s happy to drive us there and back – a round trip of 256 kilometres – for around $70 USD. (Half the price of organized-tour transport.)

Ahmed picks us up at our hotel. The drive through the early morning desert is very scenic.

This is the third thing I can cross off my list of must-see places in Egypt.

The area within the walls has a lot of character. The monastery is manned by bearded and be-skirted Greek Orthodox monks.

The Basilica is the visible hub of the monastery.

The interior is a jumble of mosaics and icons. No photos allowed.

Our favourite part is the collection of icons and manuscripts. They are now in a space designed, built, and paid for by Western donors – and it shows.

This is a direct descendant of the burning bush mentioned in Exodus 3:1-17.

And this is a direct descendant of the goats mentioned in Leviticus 16:7-11. (OK, I just made that up.)

The time comes to pack up our things and go. It’s been a relaxing ten days.

We arrange for Ahmed to pick us up and drive us to the airport in Sharm el Sheikh, 100 kilometres away through the desert.

Our flight doesn’t leave until 4:00 AM. We plan to leave our baggage at the airport, the go into town to kill time until later in the evening.