Northern Cyprus Road Trip pt. 1

It’s expensive travelling Northern Cyprus by taxi and takes too long by the inadequate public transport system. On the plus side, we manage to rent a car for 20 Euro per day, a shiny new 2009 Ford Fiesta.

Read on to find how the shiny new fiesta went off-road and started making funny noises.

The car at the end of the trip.

Day one starts with a trip out to St Hilarion Castle aka Richard the Lionheart’s Castle aka any Walt Disney Castle. I drive, my sister navigates, my dad sleeps. We reach the castle without any major dramas, probably because it’s well sign posted.

Next stop, Bellapois Abbey. After half an hour of random directions, we realise we’re lost and decide to skip the abbey.

Next stop, Guzelyurt (Morphou), a friendly police man tells us there are only two hotels in the area. We stop next to an old man to ask for directions. He starts speaking Turkish. We ask how to get to a hotel, he keeps speaking Turkish, opens the door and gets in the car. He says the town he’s heading for, thinking I’m a taxi driver and proceeds to tell us a story… in Turkish. He’s very drunk.

We continue along the road with our drunk friend, and eventually drive past the hotel, when we stop to turn around, the man realises he’s not going any further, despite his protests… in Turkish. Gets out, steps into a big puddle and walks off… into the night.

The hotel is expensive, a short and uneventful drive later and we’re at the other hotel which is also expensive. We try and negotiate a cheaper price and the owner calls one of his staff to translate; Kyzl-Gul is from Turkmenistan and speaks Russian and most of the Turkic languages. She tells us his lowest price (higher than our highest price), we feign that we’re leaving. They offer us some pastries for the trip. We sit and share them with our new friend.

The conversation continues on for a couple of hours until we realise that we’re staying, Kyzl-Gul offers to give me an invitation letter to enter Turkmenistan. This makes me very happy.