Syria to Cyprus to Israel

Another 3:00 am start to catch a flight to Cyprus. We landed to a mass of humanity- European tourists on cheap package tours flocking to the “guaranteed sun”. All of the rental car places were completely booked- or simply wouldn’t rent for just one day. We found a small local company with a Volkswagen “open air” (translated- no A/C) for $100/day. We had no choice, so we headed off from Larnaca to the western part of the island.

Photo courtesy of Flickr

We drove into the mountains for a drive through the “lace making” town of Lefkara. What a sleepy place- it didn’t feel like there was any life in the town at all. So, we headed further west to what the tourist woman described as a living museum, Pafos. It was a blue-collar beach resort designed for Euro package tourists. Extremely hot and very boring, we found the only A/C restaurant on the seafront and had lunch. With 5 hours to go before we had to be at the airport, we couldn’t stand any more time in Pafos.
Photo courtesy of Flickr
So, we headed towards Nicosia to get a sense of the divided city. The town is literally divided down the middle by a “blue line” between Greek/Christian and Turkish/Muslim. The town was also completely quiet- no people on the streets, no activity at all. The A/C Holiday Inn was a haven for an hour. The reception desk explained that the entire town vacations in August, so things were very slow.

Happy to have seen Cyprus and determined never to return, we headed to the airport to face another El Al 45-minute interrogation. Feeling abused and angry, we headed onto the El Al flight to Tel Aviv, a 50-minute agonizing flight. First, we were subjected to the El Al “video magazine” which was played at volume and consisted primarily of advertisements oriented to the 18-year-olds. After that travesty ended, the crew put on 18-year-olds music at full blast while the idiot kids on the flight sang along. It was by far the worst flight we’ve ever been on.
A car and a drive back to “home”, our apartment away from home.