After an extremely disappointing organised tour, where we spent nine hours in a bus to visit one of the only non-world-heritage listed churches in the Troodos mountains, we cancelled the rest of our tours and decided to take up residence by the beach instead. Even Adrian said that he would prefer sitting by the water rather than in a bus for several hours to see a pile of old rocks.

My next few days began at 5:30 am, where I would wrap a blanket around my shoulders and sit on the balcony to watch the sun rise over the ocean. Then I would wander down to the buffet restaurant for my first breakfast of the day, perhaps some porridge with walnuts, sultanas, and golden syrup. Exhausted by all this activity, I would nap until mid-morning when I would join Adrian and John for breakfast number two, usually some eggs and baked beans, followed by waffles and fresh Cypriot oranges.

We would then amble down to the water’s edge, where I worked my way through The Exception, while the boys argued over America’s history of foreign policy or the relative merits of Obama’s healthcare bill. By lunch time we might have worked up the energy to leave the hotel and amble down the road to find a restaurant for lunch, perhaps kebaps, usually accompanied by a cute couple of kittens begging for scraps.

I would then head back to enjoy nap number two, while John would meet up with new friends and Adrian would bury his head in a newspaper or check-up on the lab back home. After a quick swim, dinner time would soon arrive, and we would again venture out to sample the local cuisine. As the day drew to a close, I would return to our room to again look out at the ocean, temporarily decorated with the twinkling lights of the Israel-bound “Pride North America” oil-rig, with Orion and Sirius standing guard overhead, and fall asleep to the sounds of the waves gentle lapping against the shore.

John’s new friend Anton offered to take us around and show us the best of South Cyprus for the day. We started with a drive up the coast to Coral Bay, past some herding ruminants, and then stopped in to see the national bird and animal park. After admiring the puzzle-solving abilities of the parrots, fearsome owls straight out of Ga’Hoole, we dropped in on the show-pony peacocks, the cute ring-tailed lemurs and the huddling little owls.

We promenaded down the Paphos Boulevard with an ice-cream in one hand, and then Anton took us to his favourite restaurant, a small place on the shore, where the chef brought out fresh fish for my approval before grilling up a delicious sea bass. On our way back, we stopped at Aphrodite’s legendary birthplace, a scene of serene blue water and shapely rocks.

As we made our way north across the island, John and Adrian had yet another vigorous debate over what defines a country. North Cyprus is not recognised by the UN as separate from Cyprus, yet we needed our passports to cross the Green Line in Nicosia, the last divided capital in the world. Once on the other side, most prices were quoted in new Turkish lira, the mobile phone provider was Turkcell, menus were in Turkish rather than Greek, and the Turkish flag was proudly flown alongside the North Cyprus flag.

Our first stop was Salamis, the ruins of an old Roman city kingdom first mentioned in 709 BCE. There were few other people around, and it was eerie to be able to walk down an old Roman road, carefully constructed over 2500 years ago and still in reasonable condition, considering its age.

Next, we drove to once opulent port city of Famagusta (Magusa in Turkish), surrounded by 16th century Venetian walls, and perhaps the setting for Shakespeare’s Othello.

At the centre of the town there are crumbling ruins of once-majestic 13th C Lusignan Gothic structures, surrounded by dusty corridors and corroded sandstone walls. We waited out a brief rainfall while enjoying a satisfying lunch, then Adrian was brave enough to try the salepi dondurma (fox testicle ice-cream).

Adjacent to old Famagusta is the area of Maras (Varosia in Greek). It was a popular tourist resort town with spectacular beaches and bright tower blocks in the 1960s up until the conflict between the Greek Cypriot Army and the Turkish Army, and subsequent division of the island. In 1974 the Turkish advances panicked the Greek population, and its inhabitants quickly fled their homes. What they thought would be an exile of a few days turned into several decades, and this suburb remains abandoned today, filled with weeds and with warning signs and barbed wire to keep out the curious