In my last post, I talked about the logistics of getting to Tbilisi without ending up arriving at 3am and how the best option for me ended up being flying into Cyprus to get a lunchtime flight into Tbilisi. And since I was arriving in the evening and leaving at lunchtime the next day, I added in an extra day so this was a proper little stopover, rather than merely an inconvenient night in a hotel. So I arrived at about 6.30pm on Saturday and flew onwards at 1.40pm on Monday, giving me about 36 hours, when you factor in getting out of and back into the airport.
I was staying at the Best Western Larco which is a little south of most of Larnaca, a fairly short walk from the famous Salt Lake and an even shorter one to the prom which runs along the glorious Mediterranean. Best of all, it’s only 10 or 15 minutes on a direct bus. On Saturday evening, laden with luggage, wearing as many of the clothes as I possibly could, I was pleased by how easy it was to find. I checked in, abandoned my luggage on the bed along with most of the layers I was wearing and headed straight outside in the dark.
I’ve mentioned it a few times but I walk 2km every day. Have done since May 1st 2020 and I’m not having my record spoiled because it was darker in Larnaca than I expected. It was still only about 7.30pm, maybe quarter to eight. Maybe I don’t love going out for my walk in the dark in a strange place but not yet 8pm is definitely still daytime, whatever the sun and moon think. I followed Google Maps to the seaside, a couple of hundred metres away where I found a well-lit one-way road and a beautiful brick promenade. The sea was only a couple of inches below the level of the prom and the nearly-full moon reflected on it in an incredibly way. I couldn’t make out how deep it actually was, right there, but it still looked appealing. I admit, I walked along the prom keeping one eye on my Strava to tell me when I’d hit 1km and could turn back and do the other kilometre back to the door of the hotel. It was January and that means it shouldn’t be too hot. On the other hand, I had a long weekend in Malta in January 2019 and it was unbearably hot. But at this time of night, with all my layers shed, it felt quite comfortable.
In the morning, I went down for breakfast – breakfast included! – and then made plans for my one full day. I wanted to see the Salt Lake first. That’s a fairly easy walk down the road and see if I can find a way to cut across the corner to the lake. I could decide whether or not I wanted to walk around the lake when I got there. This was where I made my first mistake.
Because of the complications of the flights to and from Tbilisi, I only had hand luggage. I didn’t have the space for any suitable Cyprus clothes. So off I went to the lake in my mountain boots, my hiking trousers and wearing my bulky red pocket-filled hoodie, the one you’ll have seen in every single selfie I took in Tbilisi. This outfit was far too hot for Cyprus but the previous evening I hadn’t been outside long enough and it was late enough that I hadn’t noticed how warm it was. I took the hoodie off within about 100 metres of the hotel and I should have gone back to the room and left it there but I’d already gone out and I wasn’t going back. I really should have.
Anyway, by the time I made it to the lake, I was about ready to pass out from heat exhaustion. I had half a bottle of Fanta with me and that was just about liquid and sugar enough to keep me conscious and then I sat down under a bush – I say a bush. Some sticks that gave me just a little shade. I sat there and sketched the view and cooled down. No way was I going to walk any further. I’d be lucky just to get back to the hotel. I desperately needed a sun hat but expecting minus something degrees in Tbilisi, all I’d brought was woolly hats and that would have just made things worse in Cyprus. I took the journey back to the hotel very slowly, wondering if the pool was open. I’d booked it specifically because it had a pool.
I didn’t go in the pool. It was open but I went to my room, took off my boots and socks and chucked the hoodie in a corner and then I sat on the balcony with a drink and my watercolour palette and painted the view I’d sketched. Why didn’t I go in the pool? I don’t know. My balcony directly overlooked it and there were kids splashing around and ladies in bikinis who looked like they weren’t sure whether they were just posing or whether they even wanted to be in the water, I never actually went downstairs and jumped in. I guess on the balcony in a t-shirt, with my trousers zipped off and no socks, I was cool enough to no longer feel the urge to throw myself into the cold water.
It couldn’t last. I’d grabbed some snacks at the airport but I needed some more food to last the next 24 hours until I reached the Carrefour near my hotel in Tbilisi so I had to go into Larnaca. It was a Sunday and the nearby reasonably-bit supermarket was closed. So I dressed more suitably, shook my head at the heavy boots that were my only option, and headed for the seaside again. I have to say, it was much cooler here with the breeze on the sea. It was a perfect sea, too. Now I could see that it was probably only a foot or two deep along the prom and absolutely crystal-clear. Now, there’s a sea even I want to swim in in January.
It was easy to spot that I was a tourist. Almost everyone else coming down the prom was wearing at least a jumper, if not a coat. There’s another tourist, prancing around in just a t-shirt, with a leaflet about some tourist attraction. That’s a local. That’s a local. Tourist. Definitely the tourists were underdressed compared to most people but it’s a lot warmer in Cyprus in January than it is the UK! If I’d had my sandals and some shorts and a sun hat, I might have said that even for a polar bear prone to melting, this was a pretty nice temperature.
I made a stop at Larnaca Castle which is almost literally on the beach. The prom has to divert around it before it meets the road at the main beach. It’s €2.50 to go inside, where they have a couple of exhibitions about the castle and the history and the artefacts, steps up to the ramparts for views out to sea, some empty rooms that used to be dungeons or armouries or vaults and a lovely shady area in the middle with trees. I spent a little while here, taking advantage of shelter from the sun and finding places to take selfies. It’s reasonably quiet right up until you pop your camera on something, at which point a group of half a dozen people stop to examine something right in the middle of the frame.
Supermarkets are apparently not a thing in central Larnaca. There’s a nice Lidl but it’s a 50 minute walk north and I wasn’t doing that. I tried some of the little convenience stores but they’re convenience stores for people who want fresh veg or microwave meals for their villa, not bread rolls and plastic cheese slices, which is the sort of thing I grab as a stopgap when I’m travelling and living in a hotel room where cooking facilities mean a kettle. I only had 36 hours in Cyprus and by Sunday afternoon, I was yearning to be in Tbilisi where I knew I’d have easy and plentiful access to supermarkets. Oh, there are cafes and restaurants along the seafront but for a person with ARFID, that doesn’t always work so well. Honestly, considering my eating issues, it’s astonishing that this is the first time it’s been a problem. I did go and get some chips and a drink in Burger King which maybe I shouldn’t have done – got that one demonstrated really well when it turned out the drinks machine was broken and several people had to just stand there and wait until it was fixed, rather than take our chips and run.
By the time I was walking back along the seafront to the beach, it was starting to get a bit dark overhead, like there was a rainstorm coming. It seemed to be to the north so as long as I kept scuttling, I could keep ahead. And I did. It was still dry when I made it back to the hotel and a couple of hours later, the rain absolutely fell down. I went out on my balcony and watched the rain and watched the buses pass by.
In the morning, I went out early for my daily walk again. I’d be in much the same position as Saturday – a flight around lunchtime which would get in to Tbilisi around late afternoon/early evening and then I wouldn’t want to go out and walk 2km in the dark, so I did it in the morning. Monday morning on the seafront at Larnaca is pretty quiet. The sky was pretty blue and it was just breezy enough that I kind of wished I’d taken my hoodie along with me. The sea was glorious, the fort was almost silent, there were cats on the beach and I was really glad I’d decided to do this walk. Then I went back for breakfast and had half an hour to repack everything. I knew by now that walking the 300m to the bus stop would be hot but that I might well want some more layers when I disembarked later on in Tbilisi so I didn’t want to pack them all in my main bag. There’s only so much I can fit into my personal item. The heated coat I’d have to carry. The packable jacket could go into the personal item, as could the thin hoodie. But the heavy one… where would that go?
I was nervous about the bus stop. I’d watched the buses go by from my balcony but there was no bus stop marker on that side of the road. Google Maps said the bus stopped opposite where I’d jumped off 36 hours ago but I really needed to know that it would stop on this side as well. I was a little reassured when another couple of people joined me to wait outside the tiny shop and I was ridiculously proud of myself for flagging down the bus and jumping on it.
Do I need to say anything about the airport? Oh, yes. At Cyprus, you scan your passport yourself and it prints off a heat-printed police receipt which you hand over with your receipt when you arrive and leave. But there was a queue and eventually, a man came along, calling “If you’ve scanned your passport, come this way”. He took the slips and ushered us through. It’s got all the details. Putting it in the computer can wait, apparently. I went through, hesitantly. I paused on the other side. No. Can’t do this. I went back, through gates that aren’t meant to operate in that direction and requested a passport stamp. We’re a third country now. I can only stay in the EU for 90 days – or is it 180? I’m never going to reach that limit so it doesn’t matter, unless I never get a stamp that says I’ve left. What if that lack of stamp caused me a problem when I flew into/out of Amsterdam a week later? What if that lack of stamp caused me a problem a few months down the line, the next time I go into the EU? There are things you can take a chance on but your immigration status isn’t one of them. I needed a stamp and if that meant taking the emigration queue in the wrong direction to get it, so be it.
He looked at me a bit oddly, like I was a six-year-old asking for a play stamp but he did it without question. Now I was happy. I went through to my gate where I could stop, sit down in a quiet corner, update my travel blog, brush and plait my hair and eat some snacks. And then I was off to Tbilisi, and so the end of the story is the beginning. You can read my First Impressions of Tbilisi here and the rest of the Georgia posts here.