Mediterranean Meanderings

7th July 2010

I am so excited I might spontaneously combust - we have a bus service! I know – how brilliant is that! It only started on Monday and to say it is not yet a finely honed service is something of an understatement, but give them time. I wandered out yesterday intending to just pop into the supermarket when a bus with a number on pulled up – ‘hang on’ thunk I, ‘they must have actually got their act together and given me the bus service I have been chanting for since I got here!’ So I got on the bus as I thought it would be rude not to, after all they had gone to all that effort just for me. I went into the Tourist Information Office in Agia Napa to see if they had any bus timetables and the lady in there was almost in tears. She had pages and pages in front of her and said that they had been delivered the night before and she had given herself a headache trying to work them out. She very kindly photocopied a couple of pages for me and assured me that eventually a proper booklet would come out.

I strolled back to Agia Napa Square to see what bus should happen along next and sat waiting for the bus whilst reading the information the poor harassed lady had given me and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Every bus journey is government subsidised in an attempt to get Cypriots to use public transport and I can now get on any bus for just a euro. There is a bus from the hotel at the bottom of my road to Larnaca Airport about 5 times a day, for €1 – yes I repeat €1 – each way. There are circular bus routes to both Paralimni and Protaras going past my complex. By this point I was nearly apoplectic with excitement. Does this mean an end to struggling across the waste ground with a rucksack full of shopping? The next bus that pulled up took me back to the centre of Paralimni and I thought that I would see if I could get one of these legendary buses back to my flat. The only drawback with the bus times is that they only give you the time that the bus leaves the first stop, you have to guess and approximate for everywhere else on the route and when something is circular, what do you take as your start point? I stood outside Kokkinos Supermarket in the harsh rays of the midday sun from 12.20 to 1.00 for the 12.30 bus, but it was conspicuous in its absence. There are as yet no bus stops in Paralimni, apart from in the square and so I was guessing anyway as to what side of the road the bus might stop, but it didn’t really matter as one didn’t go past in either direction. I finally gave up as I knew the buses stopped for lunch and wandered back to the bus office in the square. Here I eventually got on the 301 Paralimni Circular at 2.00 – knowing full well that I could have walked home hours before but that would have been missing the point entirely. I was the only person on the bus and the driver could not speak a word of English – and indeed why should she? She drove out of Paralimni and into Kapparis on a route that seemed to bear no relation to the one on the timetable and after a while turned to me and by means of gestures asked me where I wanted to get off. I pointed out to her on the timetable my bus stop and bless her she had no idea where it was. By this time we were near the Amore which is only about ten minutes walk from my flat – so I simply said ‘Amore endaxi’ and we beamed at each other as I left the bus. About ten yards in front of me a Cypriot lady nearly jumped out of her skin to see a bus and frantically waved it down in case it was a mirage. She got on and they both waved cheerfully at me as they drove up my street!

Now I know this sounds shambolic, but it was only the second day and I think it is going to be brilliant if they keep going with it. It is a wonderful scheme from the government and if they can just keep going through the initial indifference, which always follows change, and not give up it should be a great success and hopefully stop a lot of the irresponsible drinking and driving that goes on – the Protaras/Pernera circular runs every hour all night and surely no one can object to paying €1 as opposed to risking the lives of themselves and more importantly others. So – well done Cyprus!

This last weekend I probably had the most fun I have had since I moved out here. Sue, Chris and I went to stay with ‘Our Friends in the North’. Jenny invited us to stay at her beautiful house, which is in a village about 20 minutes outside of Kyrenia, as our friend Tony (who lives just up the road from Jenny) is about to start a new life in Turkey and we wanted to spend some time with him before he went. From the second they picked us up at the Green Line in Pyla to the second we were dropped off again we did not stop laughing. Unfortunately I cannot share most of the humour here because it would probably make even Bernard Manning blush. I swear like a trooper anyway, but even I have probably never sworn so much in such a compressed amount of time. We were wonderfully and inventively abusive to each other – which is something you can only do properly if you really respect and love the person to whom you are talking. I have always found in my life that the politer I am to someone, or they are to me, the more indifferent we are to each other. I do love banter and Tony has a real gift in it, whilst Chris has a gift in surreal humour.

We drove through the countryside towards the Old Town of Nicosia and I have to say that, whatever your political standpoint, this part of Cyprus is far more like I imagine an Eastern Mediterranean country to be. It is not nearly so built up and you can see for miles across the plains to the mountains. As is usual I had been having one of my ginger (always with the hard gs please –as in gong) rants and we passed a sign saying ‘Gule Gule’, which we assumed was a village name – it turns out it is Turkish for goodbye. Chris, quick as a Cypriot driver and dry as biltong, said ‘if you came here with your ginger mates and knocked on people’s doors would that be a Ging Gang Gule Gule Wotcha?’

The heat was like a physical entity that weekend. When we walked out of the cool of the restaurant in Nicosia it felt as though we were being enveloped in the arms of Lucifer – which needless to say I loved. However, it is draining when it is that hot so we went back to Jenny’s house to cool down. Her house is absolutely beautiful. It is right on the beach, from which you can see the outline of Turkey on the horizon and behind lie the Five Finger Mountains. About five minutes drive away is a beach where there is a turtle conservation programme going on and the whole area is incredibly peaceful. The cost of food is much less in the north – a loaf of bread being about 25 cents. However, you do have to have all your water delivered – there are no pipes in this area yet and without a car you would not be able to get far.

That evening we popped into Jenny’s local bar, and proceeded to be the liveliest and silliest people in there. They obviously knew that Jenny is a Buddhist and that she was having her Buddhist friends to stay as at one point one of the men turned to us and said: ‘I didn’t know Buddhists could have so much fun’. How funny! In a religion that celebrates life and making the most of each moment why would be less likely to have a good time than anyone else? The bar man also thought that Chris was the only possible Buddhist among us as he was the only one with a shaved head. I ask you!

Sue, who has a lovely voice, did a fabulous version of Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’ and then she and Chris did probably the classiest rendition of ‘Young Guns (Go For It) that I have ever seen. I thought I was going to cry with laughter at one point. George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley can’t know what a big mistake they made by not singing it ‘Club-style’.

The next day we went into Kyrenia/Girne for lunch. It is a beautiful town and has its own character, which is so rare in these days of globalisation. On the drive back to head once again to Jenny’s lovely swimming pool Tony nearly made me explode with laughter. There was a car pulled up at the side of the road and Tony said: ‘right, we should be really Buddhist about this’ and slowed up the car. We all thought he was about to ask if they needed any help, but he just wound down the window, pointed, laughed and drove off again! As Sue so eruditely said: ‘I haven’t laughed so much since the old king died.’ Now before you all have a fit, they were all perfectly fine, they didn’t need our help – so no writing in please saying that we are bringing Buddhism into disrepute – laughter is the surest way to enlightenment, that is the one thing I am totally convinced of in my life and as E. E. Cummings said: ‘the most wasted of all days is the one without laughter.’

It is a shame that I only got to know Tony so recently and just as he is about to move on, because he does make me laugh like a drain – but love is calling to him and I know that his new life will be all that he deserves and desires.

Just to finish with I have been noticing that after all the walking about in the sunshine I have been doing that I have become quite tanned. I must be at least 50 shades darker than I was when I moved out here and silly as I know it is I feel a real achievement at actually having some colour in my skin. Then I stand next to someone who has perhaps been out here 3 days and realise I am still ridiculously pale compared to the real world, and it is no point me even beginning to compare my skin colour with those people who have been out here all year. Still at least I am no longer signalling UFOS by mistake with the glow of my milky-white skin. There are only so many encounters of the third kind that one woman can cope with.

Going back to the ginger issue, I am wondering for how much longer I will be allowed to be a ginger as the same sunshine is causing me to get blonder and blonder by the day – which is terribly depressing. If I have to put up with all the crap that comes with being a ginger I should at least get to keep the hair colour. Still nobody believes it is natural anyway. Women are always asking me where I go to get my highlights done and refuse to believe me when I say that I was just born lucky – they certainly don’t get the irony of the statement. As poor old Anne tries to explain in Anne of Green Gables : ‘You’d find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair,’ said Anne reproachfully. ‘People who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble it is.’ This is so true, but I also like the old adage: ‘Gentleman may prefer blondes but it takes a real man to handle a redhead.’ Too right and I have yet to meet a man real enough to handle me!