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“Shepherds are the most content people in the world,” our host Ismael Cemal tells us. Indeed, as we’ve driven around the Northern Cyprus countryside during the past week, we’ve seen shepherds, young and old, dozing in the back of their pick-up trucks as their sheep dine in nearby paddocks, lounging under the shade of olive trees, carving pieces of fennel wood and pensively peeling oranges. Or, like our shepherd here, Mustafa, quietly meditating on the tranquil landscape as he watches over his animals.
It’s certainly beautiful. Lush green barley fields are blanketed with yellow wild mustard flowers and dotted with fig, olive and pistachio trees. Fluffy white sheep, their noses buried in long grass, happily munch away. Gently undulating foothills are carpeted with wild herbs and thick with juniper. And rising steadily behind to provide a dramatic backdrop to this bucolic scene are the 600m-high Besparmak Mountains with their limestone crags and scented pine trees.
We drove with Ismael in his battered old truck along the narrow dirt lanes up to the foothills of the nearby mountains. Ismael was taking us for a walk in search of wild herbs. We were soon making our way through what seemed like scrubby bush, but was, we quickly learned, a vast, wild, aromatic herb garden.
As he introduced us to the wild herbs – thyme, myrtle, sage, oregano and basil, and everywhere young bushes of fennel – I realised this was a bush bazaar. Only there was no need to haggle.
The idea was that villagers would rebuild the ruins of the old stone buildings crumbling in the town, turn them into B&Bs and open their doors to paying guests. They’d also rebuild some community-owned buildings – an old olive press to begin with. Visitors would experience the everyday life of a working village and get a chance to appreciate rural living. We visited a building that was being restored. Ismael pointed with pride at the local Phoenician juniper beams that formed the brace for the roof. “It’ll be good for another few hundred years,” he smiled.
The baker’s face breaks out into a big smile as she hands me the aromatic piping hot bread to taste. She knows the simple things in life can often be the most satisfying. |
In a pioneering eco-village in the hills of Northern Cyprus, Lara Dunston discovers the joys of the simple life 
“Look at Mustafa,” Ismael continues. “He spends his days reflecting on life. He’s in the fresh air, just him and his sheep. And he’s surrounded by all this beautiful nature.” 
While planning our stay at Büyükkonuk – Cyprus’s first eco-village, located in the north-west near the Karpaz Peninsula – I’d been discussing with Ismael’s helpful wife, Lois, what we might do. I was expecting a package of local activities, but Lois suggested my husband and I just hang out with the shepherd for the afternoon and experience the pristine countryside. Perfect.
We slowly inhaled the perfumed air, closing our eyes trying to work out the different fragrances wafting on the breeze. Ismael strode into the bush. He would walk for a while, arrive at a clump of shrubs, reach for a branch, break off a few small leaves, squeeze them between his fingers and hold them to his nose. We followed suit. The perfume was overpowering. 
Back at Lois and Ismael’s cosy sandstone home, we relaxed around the old-fashioned, pot-belly stove with drinks and pistachio nuts, while Lois finished cooking dinner – baked rabbit (their own) and vegetables (from their garden). They had built the house themselves over several years, collecting perfectly shaped stones while on picnics with their children and decorating it with wooden furniture that Ismael had made in his workshop – a few traditional bits and pieces and travel mementoes. 
Though a Turkish Cypriot, Ismael had lived in Australia, while Lois, a Canadian, had grown up in India. Saddened by the onslaught of mass tourism in Cyprus, with its hideous hotel complexes and the resulting loss of coastline, Lois and Ismael felt they had to act fast. They feared they might lose the village life they valued so much. In 2000, they opened their doors to guests. They rebuilt the stone house next to theirs, decorated it simply, and started offering bed-and-breakfast stays incorporating traditional village activities. They took people on walks in the hills, on donkey treks through the countryside and on olive-picking tours with picnic lunches in the groves. After the couple completed an official tour guide course in Nicosia in 2004, they were fortunate to meet a UNDP representative who loved what they were doing. 
Ismael prepared a proposal to turn their little community into Cyprus’s first sustainable eco-village and won a scholarship to study in Turin, where he could develop their project further. In Italy, he studied cultural tourism, looking at everything from tourism management at Pompei to organising tours in Barolo. Inspired, he devised a plan for Büyükkonuk.
The next morning a group of expatriate families arrive from Nicosia with a couple of dozen children keen to sample country living. Lois and the village baker teach them how to make the local olive and mastica bread the traditional way. It’s hands-on, with the children elbow-deep in flour. While the bread’s baking in the outdoor stone oven, the kids ride donkeys and pet the farm animals. The parents are delighted simply to be breathing in the fresh air. Everyone’s mouths water just smelling the bread.