We started today at a record early 7:45 am start, to head over across the Turkish boarder for the first time. I was quite nervous as we were entering a highly militarized boarder with high tensions on both sides. Our first stop in the northern part was a ghost town: quite literally. This part of Famagusta was left untouched by the Turkish occupation, and buildings, roads, and trees were falling apart from the nearly 50 years of neglect. We saw a beautiful beach which nobody was allowed on, a bombed building or two, and our tour guide’s original home.

Our next stop on our Turkish Trip was the area around Othello’s castle. We were given beautiful views of the sea, a super massive yacht, and sand unloading. We also saw some pretty churches and mosques. We even got charged 3 Lyra’s to wash our hands, which was pretty ridiculous.

After lunch, we visited a beautiful beach for two hours and spent the afternoon there. Unlike the other Cypriot beaches we had been to, this beach had sand instead of slimy rocks, which was a welcomed relief. Despite a very pretty exterior, the island in the surf was extremely sharp and very painful to walk on. I even cut my feet up trying to walk to the Greek flag in the center, which was a very bad idea. I didn’t succeed in touching the flag, but I did enjoy a nice slushie on the shore.

After we left the beach, we saw two very pretty Cypriot landmarks: the sea caves and the rock bridge. While the sea caves left me disappointed, as it was smelly, small and ugly, the rock bridge was very pretty and I was sad I wasn’t allowed to walk out on it. I thoroughly enjoyed the last beach day in Cyprus and I’m excited to wake up late tomorrow morning.