Cappadocia

When I told people back in the US that I was going to study in Turkey, I frequently was told that I absolutely HAD to go to Cappadocia. Known in Turkish as Kapadokya, it is a region pretty much right in the middle of Turkey that has some seriously sweet rock formations and cave dwellings dating back to around the 6th century (I think). I planned the trip with the three other girls that went with me to the Princes' Islands. When I say planned this is what I mean: we booked a night at a hostel in Goreme, one of the most popular destinations in Cappadocia. We did not make bus reservations or any itineraries. We just knew that we wanted to leave Thursday and come back Sunday morning, and we wanted to do it on a low budget. Thankfully, that is exactly how it worked out! We caught a night bus out of a big bus hub in Istanbul and slept through most of the 10+ hour drive to Goreme with only one minor incident. I woke up from my nice Advil PM induced "sleep" when the creepy guy in the seat in front of me grabbed my arm and decided he wanted to communicate. I will never know what it was he wanted to talk about so urgently that provoked him to grab my arm while I was sleeping at 3 AM. Maybe it's a good thing I don't yet speak Turkish? Anyway, here's what Stella, Zoe, Chelsy and I ended up doing with our 36 hours in Cappadocia.

Friday, September 24

We arrived in Goreme at around 9 AM, ready to take a nap. Sleeping on the bus had proven unsatisfactory. Sadly, our hostel room was not ready yet, so we went out and found a cute spot to have breakfast. After we got settled in our CAVE ROOM SUITE (only about $17 per person per night)- which had three beds and a private bathroom- we checked out the Goreme Open Air Museum, which is probably the most visited place in Cappadocia.It was a kilometer away from our hostel, which was great. While there were lots of

tourists, it was a good introduction to the area. Although it is called a museum, it's more like a park. The main draw is the numerous chapels, containing beautiful frescoes, that are carved into the rock. Some of the frescoes have been restored, but many of them were damaged (supposedly when the area fell under Muslim control). An interesting fact about frescoes, in case you didn't know: many are made using egg tempera, or a mixture of egg and pigment. In this case, the inhabitants used pigeon eggs. Pigeons were a huge part of the locals' livelihood because their droppings were great fertilizer! They therefore hollowed out lots of pigeon holes in the rocks to encourage the birds to stick around. Anyway, the take home point from the Open Air Museum is that these people carved caves out of rock faces and made them into chapels. With frescoes.

Awesome.

After we checked out the museum, we made our way down a poorly marked path off the side of the road that we had heard about, which took us to a scenic lookout point over Rose Valley. On the way we got to see a bit of the agricultural tradition in the region, namely pumpkins and grapes. One of the things that surprised me most was how many vineyards there are in a climate so hot and dry! You could see them all over the place, and we even saw grapes left drying out on tarps to become raisins. I may or may not have sampled a couple from one particularly accessible, vulnerable bunch. Aside from the food, the most breathtaking thing about the Rose Valley was its rock formations. They were just so bizarre! But the view was beautiful. Check it out.

We were pretty tired after all our exploring, so we went to a restaurant immediately afterwards. It's common to get bread with your meal in Turkey, like in the US. This restaurant

had a different take on bread, and gave us a piece of pita as long

as the table. I had to take a picture.

Friday night was spent lounging in our cave room, recuperating and resting up for the next day's hike out to Love Valley.

Saturday, September 25

We slept really late. Unintentionally. The hostel owner was nice

enough to come knock on our door to tell us that breakfast was closing, and so thankfully we got to take advantage of the nice breakfast spread that came included with our one night reservation. We then hiked to Love Valley, named for the phallic rock structures called Fairy Chimneys found all over the place. Sorry if this picture offends you, but they're rocks, so get over it. It was a long, hot trek, and I got a great sunburn to prove it.

Luckily there were a couple of refreshment stands along the way, and most of them were serving fresh squeezed orange juice! We were too pooped to do anything else when we got back from our morning outing, so we had lunch and then stuck to the shade on the hostel patio and did some hard core lounging. At 8 pm we caught our night bus back to Istanbul, so we could be rested and ready for classes tomorrow!