My Cypriot Adventure: A Divided Capital

On my third day in Cyprus, I woke up in Nicosia and got ready to cross the border to Northern Cyprus. I packed up my stuff and took a small bag with me to last only one night up north. My first stop was the Shacolas tower right near my hotel which has panoramic views of the city and towards the north. Then I dawdled a bit and wandered around the old city near the Green Line, getting lunch in a neighborhood taverna, and finally making my way to the Ledra Street Crossing. 

View towards the north from Shacolas tower

Huge Turkish Cypriot flag on the hillside

Selimiye Mosque with Turkish and Turkish Cypriot Flags

 

Coolest speed camera signs

Artist atelier near the Green Line in Nicosia

Just in case you forgot about the Turkish occupation

Loved the color and texture of this house

A mini mosque I happened upon

Another colorful window and lots of cacti

Another yellow bug and colorful graffiti

All of this was in one alley

the drama

Someone was clearly in love

On a window near the Green Line

Commercializing the Green Line--inside the tent pub
was another sign that read "Checkpoint Charley"

Ledra Street--the main shopping street in old town Nicosia

This photo is important to contrast with the Turkish side

Yummy ice cream--I got rose water again

And this is the pedestrian border crossing at the end of Ledra Street.
As you can see, it's a bit informal. Walk to Northern Cyprus on the left
and return on the right.

I had planned on crossing early in the morning but didn't cross until around 3PM, after which a ginormous thunderstorm struck and "forced" me to drink Efes beers for about an hour until the rain cleared out. Once the rain stopped, the streets were earily quiet because of both the rain storm and the fact that it was the day before the holiday of Eid Al-Adha (which was the reason why I had a vacation to begin with). In the primarily Greek Orthodox Republic of Cyprus, shops and restaurants were hopping, but on the Muslim Turkish side, things were fairly dead.

This is the main shopping street on the Turkish side (contrast with above).
It was amazing how different stores became after only a block!

Some of the awesome fashion on the Turkish side

Love me some "Dolce & Gabbanna"

Doner Kebabs + Ayran (yogurt drink) = we are in Turkey

Turkish delights? Now it is officially Turkey.

Historical sights on the Turkish side

One minaret of the Selimiye Mosque visible from the Greek Cypriot side

Inside the mosque which was initially built as a church, starting in 1248,
and finished 78 years later in 1326 as the Church of Agia Sofia. When the
Ottomans came in 1571, they turned added two minarets and turned
it into a mosque. It definitely looks like a cathedral from the inside.

It looked a bit awkward in some parts since it had been retrofitted

Arabic is everywhere, I tell you (obviously always in mosques).

Nationalization of religious sites INSIDE the mosque as well.

Take your shoes off

II wish I knew what the symbols stood for

Same here

Yum. My apologies to Greek Cyprus, but I prefer Efes to Keo

Here comes the storm! Serious cloud action on the left there.

National monument of some sort

Took a picture of this cat then it followed me for 20 minutes
until a teenage girl got her little brother to chase it away from me
(when she saw I was having no luck at doing this on my own).

I'd love to know what this says!

Venetian Coats of Arms above the Bedestan which used
to be a Catholic church. I was fascinated by the historical link
between Venice and Cyprus.

This was my refuge during the massive thunderstorm

And this, my company

After the storm abated, I headed on my way to find the buses to take me to Kyrenia, which proved more difficult than I envisioned. The streets on the Turkish side were a lot windier and souq-like, and definitely not a straight shot to the bus station like the Greek side. I finally saw a bus with the name of the city I was going to so I followed it around a corner to see that the driver was parking it. I went up to him to ask him "wayn" (where in Arabic) is the bus to Kyrenia. I don't know why, but I always assume using a geographically closer language will help in a foreign country (so Arabic is closer to Turkey than English--I did the same thing in Italy with French). Well, in this case it actually worked because the man started walking me over to the bus stop and speaking to me in Arabic. It turned out he was from Aleppo, Syria and had emigrated to Turkey and then Northern Cyprus twenty years ago. It felt like he quickly became my Syrian grandfather, as he sat with me for twenty minutes and waited for the bus to arrive. After a fairly short bus ride in what seemed like completely different scenery, I arrived in Kyrenia, the final destination of the day.

Post storm, walking towards the service bus stops.
Again, just in case you forgot where you were.

Finally at Kyrenia's old harbor

Really beautiful at night

Kyrenia Castle on the waterfront

Logistics/Recommendations:

Crossing the pedestrian border was obviously very easy (although coming back there was a huge line from the Greek to the Turkish side because a lot of Turkish Cypriots had gone shopping for Eid on the Greek side and were waiting to cross back). As I mentioned, the bus was a little harder, but once I found it, I paid 4.5TL (around $2) and was able to negotiate the way to my hostel by getting off at the last stop then walking towards the harbor. I stayed at Cyprus Dorms ($15 per person for a double) which was cheap accommodations for Cyprus, but which I personally wouldn't recommend. It was pretty disorganized and they had actually given away my reservation, even though I had told them I'd be coming around the time that I did. Thankfully, there was a girl by herself in a double room and she didn't mind me staying with her. I realize part of this was because I had upgraded to nicer hotels for the rest of my stay and it was harder being in a hostel after this), but part of it was also because I've stayed in much nicer hostels that had warm water and weren't terribly disorganized.