More Karpaz

The Karpaz peninsula is pretty cool. The panhandle of Cyprus. It's the least populated part of the coast, as far as we could tell. (All along the coast near Kyrenia, it's just one vacation home development after the other. Apparently, this is the cheapest stretch of coastline for sale in the Mediterranean, and it shows. Ads were everywhere targeting British folks and telling them how great it would be to retire there. In fact, most prices were actually given in Pounds.)

At any rate, it wasn't mentioned in our guide book, but one cool thing about the Karpaz was a series of hiking trails that go up to old abandoned monestaries. It would be a great place to vacation if you were into remoteness, good weather, and mellow hiking. (And spending tons of money for stuff that costs way less at home, but let's not dwell on that.) Amongst the scenery you'd encounter would be numerous wild asses. No, this is not Cancun we're talking about. Real actual wild asses, escaped after the 1974 war and feral ever since. We saw them all over the place. Apparently they've become an annoyance, eating crops and what not. But they look pretty cool. We woke up to a glorious morning for exploring...


Out of the way, sheep.




Here's a herd of wild asses at Golden Beach, what the guidebook says is Cyprus's most beautiful beach. We had hoped to stay here, but it was completely deserted on account of the off season. The asses were running the show.




Here's the northeasternmost point of Cyprus.



When we filled up for gas in a remote town, the dude who pumped the gas ("the pumper") was GQ, wearing a suit, a nice haircut and loved Revel Roo.


Dawson, watch out.

On to our sweet lodging for the night. Dawson's Flyertalk friends had recommended the Hotel Oasis, on a truly spectacular setting, amongst ruins and an ancient harbor. However, it was under renovation (and even less "safety first" than the Hotel Theresa, if you can believe it) so we retired up to the local village and stayed at the Karpaz Arch Houses. We even got crazy and splurged, enjoying an amazingly tasty dinner at the neighboring restaraunt. The Arch Houses were great for Boodah, as he got to befriend the local cats and farm animals. The feeling wasn't entirely mutual, but there were a few friendly animals that tolerated some not so gentle petting from Senor.



You could see the ocean in the distance from Justin and Elle's room.




Senor's highlight of Dipkarpaz may have been rockin' a little harder to the sweet Gn'R tunes playing at the local arcade. That's right, they had this pinball machine. And Senor knows the songs because Welcome to the Jungle is on his sleepytime playlist. (Thanks, Erin!)