Cyprus

After the intensity of Iraq, Cyprus was a welcome chance to slow down. Through tennis, I was connected with Marcos Baghdatis, one of Cyprus’s greatest athletes, who invited me for a beer and showed me around his hometown of Limassol. It was a pretty special experience to see the island through the eyes of a local, let alone a national sporting hero.

As a bit of a geopolitics nerd, I also wanted to explore a lesser-known side of the island. I took a bus to Akrotiri, one of Britain’s Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus’s southern coast. It’s definitely not a tourist destination, and the only other passengers on the bus were two Nigerians who had come there hoping to find work so they could send money home to their families. I spent part of the day with them as they unsuccessfully inquired about jobs at local restaurants. It was a sobering reminder of how differently opportunity is distributed around the world.

After leaving Akrotiri, I visited some of the country’s ancient historic sites, but what fascinated me most was the island’s political history. Walking across the UN buffer zone into Northern Cyprus, which has been administered separately since Turkey’s 1974 military intervention, I was struck by how quickly the language, culture, and atmosphere changed. Cyprus reminded me that one of the greatest rewards of travel is understanding the histories and political realities that shape the world.