We caught a night bus and arrived early in the morning. Göreme, the tourist center of Cappadocia is famous for its fairy chimneys, phallus- shaped rock formations that people in Cappadocia have hollowed out and used as shelter for thousands of years. Savvy businesspeople have turned some fairy chimneys into hotels, and Mike and I chose a cave hostel to stay in, even though it was dim and musty. There aren't many other chances in life to stay in a fairy chimney cave room.
We visited the UNESCO World Heritage Göreme Open Air Museum, which is a collection of cave monasteries and churches with some fading frescoes. We spent a few hours walking around the Open Air Museum and the surrounding rock formations.
One of Cappadocia's main tourist activities is a hot air balloon ride at dawn among the fairy chimneys. At 130 Euros a person it was way too expensive for us, but we woke up at sunrise and climbed the Göreme hill in time to watch the balloons take off. There was a main launch site with about 10 balloons but we saw some other balloons popping up from different places on the horizon, so it seemed to be a thriving business, even out of tourist season. It was freezing cold on the ground so I'm sure it was much colder up in the air, but we met a British tourist who said it was definitely worth it. Maybe when I'm a millionaire I'll make a stopover in Göreme and take a ride.
Neither Mike nor I are into package tours, but it's very difficult to see the sites of Cappadocia on your own. Transport is expensive to hire as things are spread out, so we signed up for a day tour. For 50 lira it was much cheaper than organizing it ourselves, and even though our tour guide had terrible English, we learned more from him than Lonely Planet would have told us. We stopped for a panoramic view of Göreme and then explored the underground city of Derinkuyu. It was built BC and was used by villagers as a hiding place from enemies. It went 8 stories underground and got a bit claustrophobic at times, but it was interesting to imagine living months and months without any sunlight- almost like winter in Lapland, but without beautiful snow.
We then made up for the lack of fresh air in Derinkuyu by walking a 2-kilometer length of Ihlara Valley, ending with a nice lunch. We stopped by Selime Monastery, the biggest rock monastery in Cappadocia, which is also famous for being the place where Luke Skywalker went in search of Ben Kenobi in the first (fourth) Star Wars movie. We quickly visited a geothermal lake nestled in the mountains that resembled Kyrgyzstan, especially the two donkeys. :) There were dogs guarding a herd of sheep, and they (the dogs) had collars with huge spikes to protect them from wolves. They never came close enough to get a photo of the weapons though.
We ended the tour in Pigeon Valley, where locals have built homes for pigeons in the valley's walls. They then collect the pigeon poo and use it as fertilizer. Pretty smart, huh?
One of the culinary specialities of the region was a pottery kebab, a mix of meat and vegetables cooked into a clay pot, which is then broken open and eaten. Unfortunately it looked a lot cooler than it tasted.
We spent most of the weekend in cafes drinking a lot of orange tea and hot chocolate and smoking hookahs. It was a relaxing break from work and city life.
sunset
No comments:
Post a Comment