-
Escaping Cyprusgrad: The Better Parts Of The East Coast
There’s a palpable air of relief in the car as we drive past the little harbour at Bogaz, knowing now that the horrors of Cyprusgrad are behind us, at least for a few hours. The land opens up to olive groves, fruit trees and even vineyards, then ploughed fields and vegetable crops, and at last there isn’t a high rise or a construction site to be seen. Turning east into the start of the island’s guitar neck, we are, somewhat ominously, suddenly on a brand new roadway of pristine black tarmac. Ominous because, why build a new road to nowhere unless you have development plans? We decide not to dwell…
-
Cyprus: The East Coast And Its Unexpected Horrors
Rather than take the bigger roads via Lefkosa we opt for what should be a more scenic route along the northern shores, then turn south to head over the mountains to Iskele on the east facing coast. The stretch along the north coast is remarkable for one giant, unmissable feature: construction works. It’s been well documented that President Erdogan is keen for North Cyprus to become a tourist hotspot, but the sheer scale of development is unimaginable. Soon, at this rate, the flatlands between the mountains and the sea will be full, there will be nothing to see but concrete, steel and high rise, such is the breathtaking expanse of…
-
Dubious Saints, Mutant Sheep & Castles In The Air: Cyprus Unfolds
The downpour is so intense that we don’t really want to leave the boat, but we have to get back to the apartment somehow so it’s heads down and off into the onslaught. “Goodbye”, shouts Captain Bayram as we head off, adding, “remember, tomorrow there is worse rain, very bad”. He isn’t kidding either. By the time we return next day from a rather fruitless trip on the dolmus out to Lapta village, the streets of Girne are rivers, floodwater several inches deep racing down every slope and finding every shortcut through town. It’s an outrageous deluge which lasts for hours and has locals laughing and scurrying for cover in…
-
Into The Northern Half Of Cyprus
So here we are in the northern half of this partitioned country, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a self-declared independent nation recognised as such only by Turkey itself. The region is accepted by the UN as not being under the control of the Cypriot Government; Cyprus is the only EU country with a section not governed by that organisation’s laws. Despite loosening of controls on the partition line, there are still restrictions in place, which is how we come to be in our current situation. You see, we had the very good idea that it would be interesting to travel through the two separate halves of Cyprus, to…
-
Back North To Fes, Then West To Casablanca
Our farewells with Mohammed and the other guys at Merzouga are heartfelt; we feel like we’re leaving friends behind while Mohammed says they will miss us and implores us to return some day. We say we may do, but of course inside we know it’s not going to happen, there’s still a whole world out there. The need to take the Duster back to Fes means retracing our steps through the Ziz valley, past and over the Middle Atlas mountains, but with an overnight call in a different town – not Errachidia this time, but the unassuming town of Midelt. This is basically a dormitory stop for food and sleep,…
-
Merzouga: Three Days In The Desert Sun
Sometimes it’s when you look back at a particular time or place that you realise just how good it was. And then sometimes, now and again, when you get really lucky, it’s as the time itself is unfolding that you know something very special is happening, your senses are alive and you are absolutely living in the moment, knowing that this is a time you will never forget. Such was our three days in Merzouga…. As we eat brochettes by the roadside on our first night in the desert town we don’t really want to have to sleep, we’re willing it to be morning, so eager are we to experience…
-
Desert Road Trip: From Fes To The Sahara
This is such an amazing, auspicious feeling, as we drive away from Fes and head off towards a little bit of the unknown, the hired Dacia Duster our companion for the next seven days, one of the most exciting parts of this entire Mediterranean journey opening up ahead of us. Also ahead of us are the Middle Atlas Mountains, looming in the haze like Earth-shackled storm clouds, goading us to take them on and make it to the desert beyond. We are soon into the scrub style of desert where grey rock meets red earth, where nomadic shepherds tend sheep and goats beside their temporary tented villages, where dust devils…
-
The True Face Of Fes
It’s hot again now. Gone is the mountain air of Chefchaouen, gone is the Atlantic breeze of Tangier, replaced by daily afternoon highs of around 36C, but it’s a bone-pleasing, perfectly dry heat with none of the humidity of Asia. Local guys tell us we’re “lucky”, just recently Fes experienced a prolonged spell during which temperatures were another 10 degrees higher than this every day. Fes is not always blessed with good press. “It’s too big, a massive city”…”you will be pestered by guides and touts every second”…”it’s too touristy, it’s not real any more”…”for hassling it’s worse than Marrakech” were among the things we were told, or had read,…
-
Meknes & Volubilis: Ancient Sights And Building Sites
According to the screen at the end of the carriage, we’ve just hit 313 kilometres per hour, a whacking 194mph, as we speed southwards through the changing terrain. Morocco’s new high speed railway, the first of its kind on the African continent, is comfortable, efficient and very impressive, and we arrive at our change point at Kenitra in the blink of an eye. From Kenitra to Meknes it’s much older rolling stock, the compartment-and-corridor combo reminding me of British Rail circa 1970. We have high hopes for Meknes, high hopes which are all but dashed before we’ve even settled in. Virtually everything we were intending to visit is closed for…
-
Tangier: A City With A Mission
The famous faces stare down at us from the walls. Film stars, movie directors, statesmen and politicians, from Winston Churchill to John Hurt, from Jean-Claude van Damme to Yves Saint Laurent, Aristotle Onassis to Tom Hiddleston. Apparently there’s been some important previous guests in our hotel. This is all by accident, we had no idea we were checking in to a hotel steeped in both history and majestic colonial style, we just thought we’d got a bargain at a decent place. And by the way, it is a serious bargain, the tariff sheet on the door of our room puts the usual price at almost FOUR TIMES the rate we’ve…
