Letters From Turkey: Denver > London > Izmir > Ercan > Istanbul

(Abridged version)

“Yah.. I’ve got a funny feeling about my bag…” I had texted my sister at 1:00 am as I lay awake in that crummy Cyprus hotel with bad pistachios.

“What? Why?”

After missing my first flight from London to Istanbul (yeah that’s right) because London Luton DOES NOT fly to Istanbul, I frantically bought the cheapest one I could find… which left in 12 hours. After a night of breaking a deplorable amount of social norms, I saunter up to the check-in counter at London Stansted.

Pegasus lady looks confused. MY ticket shows two layovers, Izmir and Ercan but hers only shows Izmir. She assures me with an extra sticker that my bag will arrive and somehow that’s not totally comforting. I double-check that it will arrive. She looks annoyed.

The next 56 hours were a whirlwind of immense travel woes. Why exactly I ended up in Nicosia for 22 hours and why I went Izmir > Ercan and then Ercan > Istanbul I will never really make sense of. And after a chaotic week hopping around England and finishing on a rather dishelmed note, the arrival to Ercan was much less than exhilarating.

But determined, I figured I’d take advantage of my inadvertent layover and maybe explore Cyrus during the day. Little did I know that the Cyprus my cousin used to party at every summer was actually separated from the Cyprus I flew into.

A taxi driver, whom I ended up dipping out on a fare on the next day, explains this to me in half-hearted gestures at the airport café over a cup of çay. There is a Greek side and a Turkish side. Something about a war or fighting. Something about having two last names and identification cards so it’s hard for him to travel. Something about beer or “bira.” Something about gambling.

He offers to take me to a hotel, since it’s about midnight and I accept since he is a taxi driver. He ended up being very creepy and invited me to his home, which is why I dipped out on paying him the next day when he arrived to take me back to the airport; I got another taxi an hour earlier.

Regardless, I finally arrived in Istanbul only to discover that indeed my bag had NOT come and Pegasus lady’s sticker solution has left me high-and-dry.

Oh, and I left my DSLR camera on the plane… forever gone in the no-mans-land of lost airport materials. Here’s to a lot of baklava comfort eating, which I will completely excuse my self of!