A week end in Cappadocia

Pictures on: http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/8203599/1/Cappadocia?h=b0d041

This week end, instead of spending the day in Ankara between sleeping, watching tv series and going to cheap doctors (I didn't mention eating you see, I am slowly getting over the turkish food obsession), I went to Cappadocia, or the land of beautiful horses. And a beautiful land and great experience it was! It took about 5 hours to get there by bus, surrounded by an american family who had recently moved to a small village of cappadocia where they were planning to spend a sabatical year. Since there are so many hostels in Göreme, I dedided to be picky and did some inspection before picking the place where I would be sleeping the next 3 nights. Out of the options available, maybe because I am a bit of a hermit inside, I chose to sleep in a cave. But what a nice cave it was! A spacious one with electricity and running water (although cold!).


My cave bed, it feels good to have found my true cave women nature!

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Alright, the caves of Göreme are nothing like rough mountain caves. The landscape is made of many fairy chimneys of all sizes, which are rocky mounts resulting from the former volcanic activity and subsequent erosion. Since prehistoric times, in order to provide shelter and protect people from various enemies, those chimneys were carved into houses  and churches. Many of these cave houses are still in use, as private habitations, restaurants and hotels. The landscape is incredible, made of thousands of white, light pink and gray chimneys, most of which have little windows and sculptures revealing their current or past inhabitation.


The best panorama in Cappadocia

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The first night was quite hilarious. Being a foreign girl in Turkey, and getting too much masculin attention for that reason only, is most of the time very annoying. Except that evening, when after having spent a day without eating proper food I decided to eat at a very good restaurant, knowing that I would spend a little bit more money than usually. I ordered mantı kayseri, a kind of ravioli typical of one of the neighbouring towns. In my attempt to limit my expenses, I didn't order anything else. Unexpectedly, a waiter came with some red wine. And after I was done with my mantı, they brought me a very nice desert. In the end, they refused to let me pay for anything and I went home carrying paper tulips and a rose, happy to have had such a good dinner for free. On my first day, I went on an organised tour as that was the easiest way to get to many places at once. We visited an underground city, which has been used by many people since more than two thousand years. At the time of the christian persecutions, christians made it their hiding place. It's amazing how the whole place is organised, there was even a school and a church inside.

The underground city

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On sunday, I decided to go hiking in the red valley. After paying 15 lyra to see some more cave homes and churches, I went further and saw the same thing for free. That was the frustration of the day, it taught me not to listen to guides and tourist books too much! At some point, a surge of Indiana Jonesness came upon me and I decided to climb one of those chimneys, knowing plainly that I was just doing it to prove the world how strong I was. At one meter from the top, I gave up because I thought that there were better ways to die than by falling from a fairy chimney without anyone watching. On my way down I slipped, because after all, I am not the true Indiana Jones, and scratched my arm and wrists. I have to say I felt like a true cave woman after that. Later on, as I was starting to wonder if I was actually following any walking track, I heard some footsteps and saw someone appearing from the canyon in front of me. Happy to find some company, I walked through the rest of the valley with Mike, a canadian-slovakian doctor in Ecology. We ate loads of wild grapes, explored remote (and FREE) cave houses, and met with some donkeys and beautiful horses. Keep scrolling for the pictures!

Some wild grapes in a stony landscape, wasn't enough to satisfy my hunger though!

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Cavuşin, one of the oldest rock village

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The little donkey eating left over pumkins