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After arriving around 2am from my delayed flight from Antalya to Kayseri in Cappadocia to my hostel in Goreme, I was able to get some sleep before my booked tour in the morning at 9am. I had booked my tour through Rock Valley, which I highly recommend after today's tour. Getting a guided tour of this region is really the way to go, as the public transport is not as good as the other areas major tourist areas. Walking at this time of year during the day - is hot. Like, really really hot, it was around 36 Celsius today, which is 97 degrees F. Very little shade again, minus going into the caves which were about 20 degrees cooler once you walked inside.

My tour consisted of two Portuguese women on holiday, myself, and our tour guide - pretty nice! We got carted around in an A/C van. The first place we visited was the Devrent imagination valley(a lunar landscape). Our tour guide explained how this region's geography was formed - basically the area here was formed by layers of volcanic deposits, which depending on the temperature formed difference colors of volcanic rock layers. The rock is soft, and can easily be chipped (early peoples used obsidian, modern chisel and hammer) or eroded away. With erosion due to streams and rain, lead to the formation of these chimney resembling formations - which are called fairy chimneys and vary in shape depending on what rock layers are in them. This is probably the coolest landscape I've ever been to.

We then walked down to the Zelve open air museum, where abandoned homes and churches remain - though a recent rock collapse has left a large section of it damaged (collapse was due to erosion). This area was a monastic retreat from the 9th-13th century, but was inhabited up until 1952!

After this, we went to a pottery making demonstration, where we could also try our hand at it. I volunteered, and have decided to not quit school to become a potter. See pictures for this.

We went to lunch in a cave restaurant, which was very nice - many of the tours come here. We were served 2 soups, the main course which was a pottery jug kebab, and a dessert (I got rice pudding). The pottery jug kebab it basically like a pot roast, where they put in all the ingredients (vegetables, meat, seasonings) and seal the top of the pot with some type of inedible hard bread and then let it cook in the oven for 3-4 hours. They serve it at your table by hitting the top seal off and pouring it into your plate with rice.

After lunch, since it was incredibly hot out, we went to see a carpet workshop. It was pretty cool to see it, although they of course sale pitched to us for 25 minutes afterwards. The good thing is you get free drinks while you listen to them.

We visited the Goreme Open Air Museum, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site and Nature Park. There were very beautiful frescos in the cave churches here, which I have no pictures of because they were not allowed. Although, an interesting story about the frescos is that many of the figurines painted in them are damaged in very specific ways. The eyes and faces are the main targets. Why is that you may say, why damage such a unique beautiful painting? A few reasons, one being that in Islamic practice, you have no figures to pray to - it is strictly forbidden. They would destroy these figures so that you could worship them. Another reason was that people would take a piece of the eye of the painting or face for good luck, especially the people who lived here and had to abandon the area - they wanted to take the paintings with them. In order to build a church, you need to have money, so these churches had founders - which of course had their figure painted somewhere in the church as well. Most of these churches were founded between the 10-12th centuries. This area also had a large monastery, with both male and female dormitories carved into the rocks here. It was very interesting to get a tour of both the monastery area and the churches with their fresco stories (biblical).

We had two other stops just for pictures, the Uchisar Castle and a panoramic view of the valley.

It was a great tour, and I have booked another one with them for tomorrow, high light of which is to see one of the underground cities!

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