Yesterday New Cyprus Magazine followed Margaretha, and a great bunch of around 20 Swedes, on a hike in the mountains to look at nature’s most beautiful weeds; the orchid!
Margaretha Nordström (called Maggan) has lived in north Cyprus for thirteen years and operates the Sunseeker-tours, a tourism company that caters primarily to Scandinavians and British people.
Maggie assists clients with arranging accommodation, car hire, transfers to and from airports, and organises tours and activities such as bike rides (October – November), orchid walks (end of March – beginning of April), jeep safaris, paragliding, scuba diving, golf, etc.
The day began at 9:00 when we met Maggan and a group of Swedes, at Denizkizi Hotel in Alsancak, a fine hotel, nestled in a lush green park beside a beautiful sandy beach, where the guests were staying for a week.
We had a quick espresso, then we were off to the bus that took us to the place where our trek began.
Maggan sat at the front of the bus and with a microphone, she told expertly, for all passengers, about the sights we passed on the way. We were lucky enough to end up together with an English couple, real orchid experts, who had done this excursion earlier and they told us informative about the area we were going to and the plants that we would see.
The bus stopped in the village of Kormakitis, a small village in Koruçam, which we were told is one of four traditional Maronite villages in Cyprus. The Maronites in Kormakitis speaks traditionally their own unique variety of Arabic, known as Cypriot Maronite Arabic (CMA), in addition to Greek and recently Turkish.
We started the hike getting up on a high mountain, and not long into the hike we came to a valley full of “naked man orchid” or “Italian orchids”, a species of orchid that is native to the Mediterranean region. They are popular for their petals that look like naked men. All stopped for a photo and we continued on up the steep mountain.
We walked at a leisurely pace, enjoying the rare plants, and three hours later we came down on the other side of the mountain, all in one piece thankfully.
We were picked up by the bus, with the nice bus driver who drove us there, and we went to a restaurant in Lapta, the Cabin, to eat lunch where we were served incredibly good fish and Efes beer, a Turkish favourite.
When all eaten up the bus drove us to a beautiful beach in Alsancak and the passengers jumped off to walk along the beach back to the hotel.
For more information, visit the website here.
Are you interested in participating in a hike, do not hesitate to contact Margaretha:
SWE: +46-851971941
TRNC: 0090-5428810557
