In Relentless Pursuit of Snow
The story of the most nail-biting bus ride of my life
I stood fidgeting at the bus station on a cold December morning. I asked my husband again “Are you sure we’re on the right side?”, “Yes, we’re on the right side” he replied begrudgingly for the second or third time in the span of 4 minutes.
I could have sworn this city was out to confuse us. To reward the experienced natives and mock the naïve tourists, like us. Why else would two bus stations stand face to face on either side of the street?
We had been in Limassol, Cyprus a couple of days and had taken the bus multiple times and it was always on time. In fact, buses usually arrived a couple of minutes ahead of time. The fact that this bus was 4 minutes late was highly unsettling.
I watched the people around me to distract myself from the late, possibly missing, bus.
A man sitting on the sidewalk caught my attention. He placed a wooden box in front of him on which he carefully laid out some cards. At first glance I couldn’t make out what he was selling, but after a closer look, it turns out they were pocket-sized pictures of Jesus, Mary, and different saints.
An old woman carrying a strained bag of oranges approached him. She pointed at one of the cards, gave him a couple of coins, took the card and tucked it away in a large worn-out brown leather purse.
I could visualize her taking out the card at home and placing it near the stove where she cooks meals for her family. Or keeping it on her nightstand by the side of her bed for a short prayer before drifting off to sleep. Maybe she bought it for a son or a daughter whom she hadn’t seen in some time and wanted to send some blessings their way.
Six minutes late, this can’t be right. I peeked at the other side of the street for any sign of our bus, but there was none. Why would this bus of all buses in the city be late? This was the most pivotal part of our trip, and I was not going to let it be ruined by something as idiotic as being on the wrong side of the road.
Fact: It doesn’t snow in Egypt. Certainly not in Cairo, where I come from. In our coldest weather in January, on a day or two we get hail. A few pieces of ice drop from the sky and even that makes national news. That picture of entire towns covered in fluffy white snow; I had only seen it in movies.
However, in Cyprus, a stone’s throw from Alexandria, it does snow. I used that as my main selling point when I presented the idea of this trip to my husband. My second biggest selling point was that I was four months pregnant, and this would be our last time travelling kid-free. But I digress.
So, there we were, two Egyptians (and a half) travelling in December to a prominently summer destination just to see the snow.
Troodos Mountains specifically was our snowy destination. We researched how to get there and turns out for just 2 Euros we could take a bus from the nearby bus station that would drive us all the way up there. We had no real idea where or what up there was, all we knew was that there would be snow.
We checked the weather app and decided on one of the days with a high possibility of snowfall. The day had arrived, and there we were. Standing at the bus station.
And then it came! A big brown bus crawled slowly towards us carrying the awaited number 64 on its windshield and a ton of weight off my shoulders.
10 minutes late, but it was a sight for sore eyes, and all was forgiven. Passengers shuffled onto the bus, and we sat at the very front for an unobstructed panoramic view.
My first encounter with snow was going to be epic.
It was going to feel like 50 Christmas in New York movies balled into one moment. I was going to step in the snow and my foot would disappear into it ankle-deep. We were going to make snow angels and throw snowballs at each other and laugh as music played complementing the picture-perfect mountain backdrop. My imagination ran wild, and I cheered it on.
30 minutes on the road flew by quickly and we approached the base of the mountain.
Mountains are, by far, my absolute favorite feature of the face of our planet. I can scream ‘majestic’ all day long, but nothing captures the feeling of being infinitely dwarfed standing in the presence of mountains. Even as they loom in from a distance, I can feel my surroundings changing to accommodate these gentle giants.
Everything becomes humbled by their sheer dramatic scale. However, on that particular bus ride, looking up at the mountains gave me nothing but anxiety. I scanned the mountain up and down; I couldn’t see a single flake of snow.
I had seen online footage of Troodos mountains and on snowy days the mountains were white; or at least their peaks were white. I could see the mountains before me from bottom to top, green trees all the way up until the very tip. Beautiful as the scene was; my heart dropped. We hadn’t come all this way for green.
My mind raced and came back with only two possibilities. a) There was snow at the top, but it wasn’t visible yet all the way down here and it was going to become more apparent as we snaked our way further up or b) It hadn’t snowed at all that day, and we were on a bus ride up a dry green mountain in snow boots for no reason with no plans other than making snow angels.
I could tell by his face; my husband came to the same conclusion.
The bus kept stopping at small towns all the way up. The further up we went, the more hope slipped through my fingers like a melting ice cube. I started to come to terms with the perfectly green snowless mountain we were on. We might as well enjoy it.
I suggested to my husband that we get off at the next town spot, we might as well shop for some souvenirs and get lunch. I was so disappointed, but I wasn’t going to waste the entire day sulking about it.
Just when all hope was lost, there was a chill in the air. The trees on either side of the road got denser, the sky a bit greyer. The trees parted and then I saw it!
I don’t think anyone has ever been so happy to see a lump of snow on the side of the road. But then it morphed from lump of snow to patch of snow to scattered patches of snow, wider and wider, until it was a white canvas just waiting for our footprints. The bus finally stopped at the top and we exited, squealing, at the sight before our eyes.
Snow did not disappoint. It was everything we wanted it to be. We spent the entire morning playing around like children. Snowballs thrown about and snow angels firmly in the ground, we picked up some warm snacks from the abundant booths selling chestnuts and corn on the cob.
The atmosphere of the place was heart-warming. Over-inflated children running around barely visible from their puffy waterproof coats in neon colors. People making little snow men, people shopping for Cypriot delicacies, and even dogs making their way through the snow.
Up until I was 30, I had never seen or touched snow. My first experience with it was insanely beautiful. If I had grown up anywhere where snow was abundant, I might have in fact been annoyed by it. It reminded me of the unexplained fascination that tourists have with the desert in my half of the world.
I didn’t exactly grow up unfamiliar with sand or deserts, and as a kid I could not understand the joy some tourists have taking pictures of nothing but vast sandy deserts.
I thought they were pretty weird, but I get it now. Their personal experience is very different from mine. Who you are, where you grew up, what you have seen, what you have felt, can make snow a wet uncomfortable lump in your boot or a phenomenon worth getting on an airplane for.
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