Slooow Boat to Cyprus

Note: Technical difficulties with uploading photos so no pictures this time--sorry!

Getting out of Israel by land or sea is tricky since the ferries stopped running a few years ago. David's cousin works for a shipping company but, unfortunately, the boat we were supposed to be on was delayed. On Thursday we learned that cargo boats sailing out of Haifa take a few passengers but they only leave once a week. So we made a quick decision, and early Friday morning we were on a Greek freighter sailing to Cyprus.

Our fellow travelers were a motley crew: a skinny Frenchman who'd been riding around the Middle East on a dusty, 1980s-era BMW motorcycle and a burly truck driver who does the route from the UK to Qatar. Rounding out our group was a Cockney-accented driver for the Associated Press news channel. He was picking up a satellite broadcast van that had been stationed in Israel for the winter, during Sharon's illness. Next the van will go to Germany, he told us, for the World Cup. Their station doesn't actually have rights to the sports--they just want to be on the scene in case there's breaking news related to the tournament. (Yet another reason to have mixed feelings that we'll be passing through Germany in June.) David promised to shout a few ill-considered taunts to help make the station's work worthwhile.

We did eventually arrive in Limassol, on the south coast of Cyprus, and decided to head east around the island. How can I say this nicely... southeast Cyprus is sort of a European version of Cancun, populated by business such as "Tramps Nightclub," the "British Inn," and more than one "Hawaii Sun Hotel." The tourists are mainly Brits on holiday or Russian tourists on shopping jaunts. Outside the towns we passed by sandy bluffs, blue water, and, everywhere, construction projects. Can't say we'd recommend SE Cyprus except as a place to get drunk in the sun, or as an interesting case study for tourism-fueled overdevelopment.

On Sunday morning we crossed the United Nations border checkpoint into Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. Immediately things were more relaxed, more agricultural (to be fair to the Greeks, it may also have been that we headed inland). That afternoon we made our first real climb--500 meters over the coastal range. I stopped suddenly without warning on an uphill and David, who was right behind me, didn't have time to unclip and fell into the road. Luckily for me, he not only forgave me, but took some of my heavier gear for the rest of the climb. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Next, yet another ferry to mainland Turkey, and some big hills. Yikes!