Turkey – Cappadocia

The last two full days of our tour were spent in Cappadocia.  They were two very busy days as well which was  tough as we were all getting pretty tired having been on the go constantly for the tour.  It was wonderful though.  Cappadocia was one of my favourite places.  Like everywhere I seem to go I very much want to go back and explore more.

The surreal lunar landscape of Cappadocia is the real gift of the region and it was a pleasure to explore it.  The tall pillars of rock are formed from ancient volcanic eruptions and subsequent erosion.  For centuries people dug houses into the rock above ground.  In times of crisis they dug cities under ground which were places of refuge.  In particular for the Christians during the waves of Arab invasions from the 7th  to the 15th century.

Hiking

Starting the hike (the puppy really liked Steve)

Group shot – including the stray puppy who followed us from the village

Rock pillars in “Little Love Valley” – not sure what “Big” love valley would look like as these were absolutely massive

Talking time with our leader Salih (puppy was very attentive especially to the waving stick in Salih’s hand)

At a break point in the trail there was a family that serves tea (çay) and the woman crochets lovely jewellery.

We all went a bit nuts buying bracelets

A tree covered in blue glass ornaments which are protection against the evil eye

Colin opted not to do the hike and hired a bike instead to explore the wild trails instead. It looked like a lot of fun and you don’t have to prove you have a motorcycle license!

At the end of our hike we arrived at the Goreme Open Air Museum which is a Unesco site preserving some of the medieval cave dwellings including many churches with well preserved colourful frescoes.  For me the highlight was the 12th and 13th century Byzantine frescoes in the Dark Church.  It is so named as very little natural light penetrates the church so that the frescoes are incredibly well preserved and still very vivid.  If I hadn’t been with a group I would have sat down and just looked at their incredible colours and form for hours.

Dark Church frescoe

Dark Church frescoes

One of many monasteries carved into the rock

This shows the scale of how many caves and dwellings there are.

Inside one of the churches

Ochre decorations exposed by erosion of the external walls of the church centuries ago

On our last night together we all got dressed up to attend a “Turkish Night” which was a cultural dance show of regional dances from Turkey accompanied by a very bad dinner.

The boys demonstrated their ironing skills to look extra spiffy!

Our last group shot :(

A very energetic dance from the Black Sea

The belly dancer pulled Colin from the audience to try his hand at dancing. He wasn’t quite up to doing the splits.

Everyone joined in the dancing fun at the end of the night

One of the highlights of a visit to Cappadocia is enjoying the wondrous landscape at dawn from a hot air balloon.  So following a very late night at the Turkish Night was joyfully rose from our beds before dawn to ascend to the heavens.

This was one of the many instances on this trip when I have wished that I had a better camera and more skill in taking pictures.  The above images really don’t show how magnificent it was.  There were about 80 balloons in the air with 20 passengers in each. Having that many colourful balloons in the air really made it special.  Our pilot told us that they only have control of going up and down (with the hot air generated by the flames) and the rest is up to the winds so there were some balloons that went earlier and got very high up but by the time we go into the air the winds had shifted a bit.

The truck coming with the trailer for the balloon to land on and the passenger van to take us back to town.

Our pilot after safely returning to earth

Doing the balloon ride was pretty expensive considering we were only in the air for about an hour.  Some enterprising members of our group did some shopping around in town and managed to get a much reduced price over what we could have gotten through Intrepid (almost half the cost!).  So that made it much more reasonable.  It is absolutely worth it though as it is, I think, truly unique and so much fun to go up in a balloon!  I felt like an explorer or as if we were doing an Around the World in 88 Days journey.

Following a proper breakfast and as much coffee as we could consume so we could keep moving we went to visit one of the many underground cities in the area.  The one we visited is the worlds biggest underground city.  Up to 20,000 people would live here for up to 4 months if the area was under attack.  The city had space for churches, stables, a school, kitchens, food storage, wells and living quarters.  The cities were “lost” for centuries after they were no longer needed and have been “rediscovered” and excavated by archeologists in the past 50 years or so.  The passages and stairwells between levels are very small.  My legs were sore from crouching the entire time.  Sadly only a couple of my pictures turned out.

Rose showing how low the ceilings were

Aaahh space to stand up! 

Sadly at the end of our last day in Cappadocia our group started to break up.  The original itinerary for our tour was to take the overnight bus from Goreme to Istanbul.  Colin managed to find a very cheap flight so about half the group chose to also fly rather than take the bus.  We met for one last breakfast though in Istanbul.  Seeing the bus survivors I’m very happy we flew!!

I was sad to say goodbye to the tour group as we had a really good time and got on very well.  I hope to see some of them again in future (though it will likely be a while before I get to Australia!).  After saying good bye to everyone Rose and I headed off for some exploration of Istanbul (see next post to come).