Where Greek Myth Meets Modern Reality
It's time I posted my latest blog again and, being away for two weeks in Cyprus, I thought I would use the opportunity to escape to a remote, cobbled-street cafe in Polis and post something more light-hearted beyond my usual observations on technology and the economy. Ha! It is not so easy to escape one's predilictions, I find - even here as I sit a universe far away, it seems, from the call of the Western World digesting the rich G20 summit meal that left a rather gristly lump of further Afghanistan commitment to swallow.
I thought I might 'pen' something casually observant about the unsettling juxtaposition I find between the entrenched, "sunset stage" English expat community clearly at home here with left-hand driving - and inclement weather as it happens to be today! It is a population finding its place amidst an ebullient, though rather aesthetically decayed form of mediterranean life. For Cyprus appears to have quite a unique character.
Here, on the Northern coast in Latsi, understated fish tavernas serve an amazing array of fresh catch yet pay little homage to the precious needs of tourists looking for the usual trappings of finished boulevards and well-groomed hedgerows. Indecipherable road signs in the Greek alphabet make navigation in some parts impossible on pot-holed, half-completed roads, whilst liberal consumption of a particularly potent form of 80% proof "fire water" makes driving more precarious with locals given to test their new-found invincibility on hair-pin mountain bends.
Meanwhile, not far from Pomos , an ominous military outcrop juts over the coastline. Set among deserted hills and erected by the Turkish military to keep monitor over Greek Cypriot counter-activities, it's a hideout worthy of any James Bond villain. An expressive love of children, voluptuously-curved olive-skinned women and children further accentuate cultural differences.
From what I have seen in my short stay thus far, half-finished cement-block villas are definitely de rigeur. It has not taken long to realise that the country, a close neighbour with Lebanon, Syria and Iran, is mirroring similar Western European, if not UK-specific, issues.
Talking to long-term visitors and residents of the island, the collapse of Sterling has meant that many pensioners looking for their final sanctuary here in the sun are having to retreat back home with pensions eroded and mortgages now unsustainable. House/villa prices here are startlingly high by UK standards. The building boom that happened under past EU funding means vast tracts of natural land have been turned over for development and now remain in a state of unattractive disrepair as new purchases are abandoned and building contracts suspended under the current economic freeze.
Selling existing villas, I am told, is nigh on impossible as the market has come to expect ownership of brand-new builds. Rental markets, however, are threatened by the shrinkage in global travel and, despite being the Easter season, all seems unseasonably quiet with some local restaurant takings down 40%.
One resident bitterly reports that this has not stopped the Russians from acquiring prime land designated and previously protected as areas of natural beauty as local officials look to any forms of (multi-million dollar) income generation. Indeed, the sweep of cliffs leading to the impressive Aphrodite Baths, that once apparently afforded uninterrupted views of mythical coastline, is now entirely obscured by luxury villa and hotel developments.
It is here where I lost my mobile phone. If ever there was a good place to lose it, here it was on the dramatic shores where Aphrodite, acccording to Greek Myth, used to bathe and receive her lovers. No doubt she felt the compulsion to claim my phone to put in a quick 'come-hither' call to Adonis. Who can blame her?
Whilst once such a loss might have caused apoplexy, I find myself amazingly non-chalant about my loss of mobile phone connection. In the past, it would have felt like a limb had been severed or that my business had been placed in mortal jeopardy. It is, however, astounding to think that I can sit in a back-street cafe in an obscure part of town, re-connect to the world in a WiFi flash via my laptop, update my Facebook and Twitter accounts, log into essential emails to notify everyone that I simply now have a different channel through which I can be reached. I can sit, thousands of miles away from home, take in the atmosphere and life around me and post my 'live' thoughts as they occur to my company blog.
We are increasingly one world. United by technology and bound by common economic issues that increasingly transcend geographic borders and cultures. It somehow feels appropriate to me that the G20 summit happened when it did, at a time when I might otherwise have presumed I'd find myself here in Cyprus in a completely different world, comfortably isolated and immune from 'other world' issues.
I am not by any means a political activist, but I find some degree of serendipity in this sense of shared responsibility and united citizenship. And, of course, in the fact that I can still operate the realities of business seamlessly from the land of far away myth.
I thought I might 'pen' something casually observant about the unsettling juxtaposition I find between the entrenched, "sunset stage" English expat community clearly at home here with left-hand driving - and inclement weather as it happens to be today! It is a population finding its place amidst an ebullient, though rather aesthetically decayed form of mediterranean life. For Cyprus appears to have quite a unique character.
Here, on the Northern coast in Latsi, understated fish tavernas serve an amazing array of fresh catch yet pay little homage to the precious needs of tourists looking for the usual trappings of finished boulevards and well-groomed hedgerows. Indecipherable road signs in the Greek alphabet make navigation in some parts impossible on pot-holed, half-completed roads, whilst liberal consumption of a particularly potent form of 80% proof "fire water" makes driving more precarious with locals given to test their new-found invincibility on hair-pin mountain bends.
Meanwhile, not far from Pomos , an ominous military outcrop juts over the coastline. Set among deserted hills and erected by the Turkish military to keep monitor over Greek Cypriot counter-activities, it's a hideout worthy of any James Bond villain. An expressive love of children, voluptuously-curved olive-skinned women and children further accentuate cultural differences.
From what I have seen in my short stay thus far, half-finished cement-block villas are definitely de rigeur. It has not taken long to realise that the country, a close neighbour with Lebanon, Syria and Iran, is mirroring similar Western European, if not UK-specific, issues.
Talking to long-term visitors and residents of the island, the collapse of Sterling has meant that many pensioners looking for their final sanctuary here in the sun are having to retreat back home with pensions eroded and mortgages now unsustainable. House/villa prices here are startlingly high by UK standards. The building boom that happened under past EU funding means vast tracts of natural land have been turned over for development and now remain in a state of unattractive disrepair as new purchases are abandoned and building contracts suspended under the current economic freeze.
Selling existing villas, I am told, is nigh on impossible as the market has come to expect ownership of brand-new builds. Rental markets, however, are threatened by the shrinkage in global travel and, despite being the Easter season, all seems unseasonably quiet with some local restaurant takings down 40%.
One resident bitterly reports that this has not stopped the Russians from acquiring prime land designated and previously protected as areas of natural beauty as local officials look to any forms of (multi-million dollar) income generation. Indeed, the sweep of cliffs leading to the impressive Aphrodite Baths, that once apparently afforded uninterrupted views of mythical coastline, is now entirely obscured by luxury villa and hotel developments.
It is here where I lost my mobile phone. If ever there was a good place to lose it, here it was on the dramatic shores where Aphrodite, acccording to Greek Myth, used to bathe and receive her lovers. No doubt she felt the compulsion to claim my phone to put in a quick 'come-hither' call to Adonis. Who can blame her?
Whilst once such a loss might have caused apoplexy, I find myself amazingly non-chalant about my loss of mobile phone connection. In the past, it would have felt like a limb had been severed or that my business had been placed in mortal jeopardy. It is, however, astounding to think that I can sit in a back-street cafe in an obscure part of town, re-connect to the world in a WiFi flash via my laptop, update my Facebook and Twitter accounts, log into essential emails to notify everyone that I simply now have a different channel through which I can be reached. I can sit, thousands of miles away from home, take in the atmosphere and life around me and post my 'live' thoughts as they occur to my company blog.
We are increasingly one world. United by technology and bound by common economic issues that increasingly transcend geographic borders and cultures. It somehow feels appropriate to me that the G20 summit happened when it did, at a time when I might otherwise have presumed I'd find myself here in Cyprus in a completely different world, comfortably isolated and immune from 'other world' issues.
I am not by any means a political activist, but I find some degree of serendipity in this sense of shared responsibility and united citizenship. And, of course, in the fact that I can still operate the realities of business seamlessly from the land of far away myth.
Labels: culture, Cyprus, economy, G20 summit, technology, travel
posted by Joanna Lund
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8:27 PM
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