Tag: beach

Cyprus most northern spot, a wonderful beach, friends, my first Zazenkai and the earthquake (January, February 2023)

After getting off the ferry, I headed straight to the center of Girne to get a SIM card. “To the left, to the left, always driving on the left side” I was repeating in my head. From there, I continued my journey to the most natural area of “North Cyprus” that I could identify on Google Maps.

I found a wonderful, spacious sandy beach and ended up staying there for a week, or perhaps even a bit longer. What I enjoyed the most was the solitude, which gave me the chance to experience my first Zazenkai – a full day of meditation, mindfulness, and no communication. On the magnificent beach in Turkey, I had done my own three-day-long fasting and meditation retreat, but back then, I meditated only when and for as long as I felt like it. The Zazenkai with the Bright Way Zen Sangha, I had become a member of in the meantime, was different. There was an exact schedule that I decided to follow. Due to the time difference between the US West Coast and Cyprus, I started the day in solitude with meditation, and later I joined the others in an online meeting.

Before that day, I had not meditated for about eight hours a day, and I was curious about how it would turn out. I felt confident, and honestly, I think I was pretty arrogant at that point. After six hours of meditation, I felt an unbearable sensation of pain and somehow managed to let it go. However, in the next session, the pain was even stronger, and I did shift my sitting position, but it didn’t help much. In the following session, I tried sitting in a chair instead of the quarter-lotus posture, but the pain was only different but still there, and it was hardly bearable for me. Nevertheless, I kept going. During these painful episodes, all kinds of thoughts and feelings were arising inside of me, and it was more an act of willpower-based endurance than letting go and accepting.

Now, as I write this about three months later, I feel that my ego was pretty hurt and suppressed and rejected a lot of what was coming up inside me. I realize that a part of me did not want to accept what was happening within me – the pain, the struggle, the impermanence. Looking back, it seems like I went into that Zazenkai with a strong ego that wanted to prove it was capable of enduring that day, but I came out of it feeling insecure and disappointed.

A couple of weeks later, I participated in a five-day Sesshin (essentially, five days of Zazenkai), and in my post about that experience, I’ll describe a very different encounter with pain, letting go and other sensations.

During my stay at the beautiful beach, I also went on some long walks along the beach and through the sand dunes. While hiking along the beach, I found an incredible spot for tent living right next to the beach with a sun chair in between beautiful bushes and trees. I also found very accurately “cut” stone formations that looked very out of place. On one occasion, I came across a group of soldiers who were clearly searching for something. After they checked my ID, I asked them what they were doing, but all they said was “nothing.” It’s always the same when I ask these guys – they’re always “doing nothing.” It’s a crazy job they have.

From that beach, it wasn’t a long hike to reach the most northern point of the entire Island. I began my hike, and shortly after that, a friendly guy with a pickup truck offered me a ride for a few kilometers. Just when I started hiking again, another car stopped, and it’s super friendly passengers took me all the way to the most northern spot. That’s how I met Tarzan, a funny and warm-hearted guy from Turkey who had been to some rainbow gatherings. At the northernmost point, it felt like the end of the world, and that end was guarded by a herd of cute and funny roaming mules. I found myself thinking about traveling with a mule again and had a beautiful hike back to my home.

After a few more days, Isa and Arne (who I had met earlier in Turkey) wrote to me that they were tired of the cold weather in Cappadocia and had the idea to take the ferry to Cyprus. Just a few days later, they arrived at the beach, and we had another super nice time together. Sihong and Thomas also joined our little camp, and we had a wonderful evening playing an absolutely crazy version of “Mensch, ärgere dich nicht” (aka Ludo).

The night after the others had left, I woke up in the middle of the night to find Rosinante shaking in a way she had never shaken before. It felt like being in a storm, but there was no storm and the shaking was like a strong nodding. I didn’t think too much about it and fell back to sleep again. The next day, I realized that it was the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, about a hundred kilometers away, that had caused Rosinante to shake in the night and made the sea flood the beach.

A double rainbow and … (January 2023)

I continued my way to Cyprus and the day after the storm, I had been at a nice beach. Because it was pretty crisp, I was in Rosinante at that evening. I just wanted to pee and felt like going out and not using Rosinante’s toilet. So I put my jacket on, went into the rain and saw that crazy double rainbow. And then I turned my head and saw that wonderful sunset 🥰🤩✨🌈☀️

A magnificent view, hammock paradise and a storm (January 2023)

After taking the ferry, I drove up a hill and from there I was treated to one of the most stunning views I’ve ever seen! It was truly marvelous and as the sun began to set, the colors changed by the minute. From the hill, I could see the Turtle Beach, the vast river delta with its reeds and lake-like waters, the rolling hills, and the large lake and mountains in the distance. It was a breathtaking sight!

When I arrived at my new home on that hill, I was pleased to see Isa and Arne were there too. We parked our vehicles next to each other, and the following day another couple of travelers joined us. They were traveling in their UAZ Buchanka, named Olga. I have a fondness for these charming Russian off-road vans. When I had been researching and comparing vehicles to live in, I came across the Buchankas and thought they would be a good option due to their reasonable price tag. However, after learning about the maintenance and repair demands, I gained a great deal of respect for these cute vehicles. It seemed that the internet was correct about their demanding nature. Especially Martin had an strong relationship with Olga and had become her designated mechanic. Although they had bought Olga as a new car, I got the impression that they had already gone through the process of fixing every part of her at least once.

The others eventually left and I spent another day taking in the beautiful view. One day, an elderly local man came by. He couldn’t speak English or German and communicating through Google Translate was not very effective, so we communicated through gestures and facial expressions. It was fun. I figured out that his old-fashioned phone needed to be charged, so I plugged it into Rosinante. We chatted and had tea and nuts. It turned out that the man had accidentally turned on the airplane mode of his phone and didn’t know how to turn it off. It was like a puzzle game. I used Google Translate’s photo mode to translate the phone’s interface and after getting lost in its complicated menu structure for a couple of times, his phone was back online and he got about 50 new sms.

I then went on a beautiful hike at Butterfly Valley. After that, I visited a remote and secluded cove. The place was stunning during sunsets, truly magical. With the presence of trees and many rocks and stones, it was the perfect spot for relaxing in my beloved hammock.

A few days later, I continued on my journey towards Cyprus and stumbled upon a vast sandy beach that stretched for kilometers. During a leisurely walk, I met Danny and his gorgeous dog. The following day, we had a long and in-depth conversation about love, humanity, life and the universe. It was enjoyable, intriguing, and a little crazy. I noticed that conversations tend to become a bit crazy when delving into topics like universal energies and the indescribable.

Danny added me to a Telegram group where people gathered to exchange information about traveling from Turkey to India. I found it fascinating that some of this information seemed impossible to find through a simple Google search. The further east I would come, the more uncertain things like border crossings and visa regulations would be. These things seemed to depend on constantly changing factors like political situations, making up-to-date individual experiences increasingly important.

Rosinante was parked at a beautiful spot on that vast sandy beach, slightly elevated with a good view of the wide, wide beach. One day, with the arrival of a massive thunderstorm everything changed. It brought wind gusts of 80 km/h, rain, hail, and a rough sea to the beach, more and more reducing the once wide beach. Living in Rosinante during the storm felt like being on a spaceship in the midst of a solar storm once again.