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Magic mushrooms
Fairy chimneys near GöremeFor my final week in Turkey I flew to Cappadocia - the geological wonderland in the centre of Turkey renowned for it's fairy chimneys and other natural oddities - arriving just in time to see the sunset from my shuttle bus on the way into Göreme on friday evening (the 1st of June). With Göreme sitting in the centre of the Cappadocian landscape - with strangely eroded valleys full of fancifully shaped rock pinnacles fanning out in all directions - my main objective was simply to get out and walk through as many of these valleys as possible, and so as soon as I had filled up on the buffet breakfast at my hostel on saturday morning I set off, armed with just a loaf of bread, three litres of water and a general idea of where I wanted to go!
No sooner had I made my way into the aptly-named Love Valley than I was confronted by a collection of phallic-shaped fairy chimneys pointing skyward, which no amount of imagination could lead to any conclusion other than that they looked like a bunch of giant erect penises! Continuing up through White Valley I soon found myself with a canine
Valley of the Giant Penises
Fairy chimneys in Love Valley companion who for whatever reason (most likely because I gave it some of my bread and water) decided to follow my every step, and even managed to make an appearance in some of my photos! I started to feel bad for the little guy though when I noticed how tired he was - lying down in the nearest shady spot whenever I stopped anywhere to take a picture, only to drag his tired body off the ground and scamper after me as soon as I got going again.
Standing high above the surrounding plains at the end of White Valley was the town of Uçhisar, crowned by a giant outcrop of rock riddled with holes carved out by local inhabitants centuries ago, forming a labyrinth of rooms linked by tunnels. With the summer heat finally proving too much for my little friend who promptly lay down for a nap, I snuck off quietly to explore the maze of caves inside the rock, figuring it would probably be best for the dog if it couldn't find me so he would no longer feel compelled to follow me; but then when he did wake up and started darting up and down
Castle within a rock
Hilltop citadel in Uçhisar the steep hillside trying to find me I couldn't help but call out to him, and of course he was back by my side within seconds! We finally had to part company soon after though, when I paid to go to the top of the rock citadel and the attendant in the ticket office made it clear to my furry little friend that he was not welcome!
With my faithful companion no longer by my side I left Uçhisar and descended down into the depths of Güvercinlik (Pigeon Valley), which was much greener and thankfully shadier than the previous valleys had been. Eventually though the valley floor dropped away beneath my feet and I was unable to continue; and after scampering down a slope consisting of loose dirt (and, unfortunately, stinging nettles) only to find my progress halted once again by another sheer cliff below me, I had only just managed to haul myself back up the slope again when an older local man took pity on me and informed that there was no safe way to continue on ahead, before proceeding to lead me along a network of paths that included a tunnel - barely wide enough for
Picturesque valley
Güvercinlik (Pigeon Valley), with Uçhisar towering above a person to squeeze through, and with no sunlight penetrating the darkness at all - that sliced straight through the rock of the valley wall and into an adjoining valley, from where he directed me to a path that would take me all the way back to Göreme.
Finally arriving back in Göreme late in the afternoon, I stopped off just long enough for a swim at the hostel and a chicken kebap, before heading off again up behind the town to watch the sunset, as the Cappadocian landscape glowed a fiery red and a lone hot air balloon drifted silently across the sky; with the snow-capped summit of Mount Erciyes looming in the distance and a full moon rising high above.
The next morning I headed off on what I thought would be a much shorter walk, preferring to save most of my energy for a longer outing that afternoon. Fate had other ideas. After walking south from Göreme through Zemidere (Zemi Valley) I tried to find a way down into the adjoining Iceridere (Long Valley) which I was sure would lead me back toward Göreme without incident. My theory turned out to be slightly flawed. Twice
Shoestring Pension
My 'cave house' hostel in Göreme I managed to navigate my way down into the valley, only to come to an abrupt halt at a seemingly impassable thicket of trees and bushes. So each time I climbed my way back up out of the valley and made my way along the ridge above, looking for an alternative route. There didn't seem to be one. Twice more I tried to get down into an adjacent branch of the same valley, only to find my progress halted by impossibly steep slopes in much the same way as the day before.
Having by now made my way across to the ridge running between Long Valley and Pigeon Valley - and with no clear route through Long Valley presenting itself - I decided it was time to cut my losses and take the path through Pigeon Valley again, wondering if I would be able to remember the detour the old man had taken me on the previous day, or whether I would have to climb out at Uçhisar and follow the road; whilst questioning the existence of an alternative path that would lead all the way through the valley, which the receptionist at my hostel had assured me existed
Postcard from the precipice
The knife-edged ridge I had to negotiate to get out of Pigeon Valley but which I had seen no trace of.
Sure enough though, sticking to the right-hand wall of the valley I soon found myself following a rough path into a cave in the cliffside... and then straight through and out the other end! Continuing along this path I then came to another cave, and another, and another... all of which I was able to walk through from end to end, following the course of a small stream that seemed to spend as much time flowing through the rock as it did flowing around it. And though there were times when the hole at the far end of a cave would be too small for me to fit through and I would have to re-join the main path through the centre of the valley, the next cave that I could walk through would never be far away.
But just when I was starting to think this path might indeed take me all the way back to Göreme, I found myself in exactly the same spot that I had gotten stuck in the day before - and again with no obvious path down to the floor of the chasm below. But
Mother nature at her most eccentric
Fiery fairy chimneys glowing in the late afternoon sun then off to the right I saw a faint trail leading up the side of the valley, which I followed until I found myself perched on a narrow precipice wedged in between the gorge of Pigeon Valley and an almost equally steep-sided adjoining valley. Having by now decided that there was no way I was going to turn back the way I had come from, I pressed on and managed to slide down the other side of this ledge until I eventually made it to the bottom, from where another network of tunnels led all the way through to the end of the valley and a long overdue lunch in Göreme.
Later that afternoon I set off again, this time to see some of the sights nearer to Göreme on the northern side of town. And with the sun lying low in a cloudless sky, the various rock pinnacles and 'fairy chimneys' looked most impressive; while the attraction of Güllüdere (Rose Valley) was immediately evident with the pink of the rock being shown off to dramatic effect by the setting sun - though unfortunately the actual sunset itself I wasn't quite able to get up out of the valley
Survivor from times past
Part of the Open Air Museum at Zelve in time to see.
Monday brought a visit to the open-air museum at Zelve (further to the north of Göreme) where a community had lived in caves dug into the rock at the end of three adjacent valleys until as recently as sixty years ago; from where I then followed a path past the impressive fairy chimneys of Paşabağ and onto Çavuşin where I was able to climb all over the remains of a hilltop citadel that again consisted of a network of inter-connected caves and passageways. From there I continued south back towards Göreme, this time bypassing Rose Valley and instead heading up the neighbouring Kizil Çukur (Red Valley), where I once again found myself passing through tunnel after tunnel as the valley got progressively narrower, until the path eventually emerged out into a much flatter and wider upper valley where I was amazed to find local people farming the land, tending their crops as I passed by in bewilderment.
A much bigger and even more pleasant surprise was to confront me when I reached the end of this second stretch of the valley - which I had previously thought there was no way out of other
than to backtrack - and found not one but two ladders stretching up the almost vertical cliff, with another much narrower tunnel at the top of the second ladder leading straight through the rock and up onto the ridge that forms one edge of the valley, and in turn up onto the massive plateau at the end of the valley. From there I could easily make my way across to Akatepe Hill, which is also known as Sunset Point for the perfect vantage point that it provides from which to view the sunset... though I soon had to hightail it out of there in order to make it back to Göreme along the long and lonely ridge-top road before the ominously gathering storm clouds dumped thier contents!
For my final full day in Cappadocia I had originally wanted to join a guided tour that would take in the underground city of Derinkuyu as well as a stretch of the Ihlara Valley gorge, though I soon changed my mind after discovering that every one of the tour companies in Göreme were charging ninety lira for the trip - for which I had been expecting to pay no more than sixty
Stranger in a strange land
Taking a breather in the gorge at Ihlara Valley or seventy lira - and decided instead to hire a motor scooter and head out to Ihlara Valley myself; a trip of almost one hundred kilometres each way. (The irony of refusing to pay ninety lira for a tour only to then go and spend sixty lira to hire a motorcycle and a further forty lira on fuel to go to exactly the same place would only occur to me later in the day!).
So with my only previous experience of riding a motorcycle having been the leisurely ride I had taken along the coastal road near Fethiye just nine days earlier I set off, feeling a mixture of exhiliration at zooming along at speeds of between eighty and ninety kilometres per hour and blind terror at the realization that if I came off my shorts, singlet and flip-flops would probably provide very little protection from serious injury... though at least my head would be safe inside my helmet! Thankfully I managed to stay upright throughout the journey, though try as I might I could not quite manage to hit the magical 100km/h mark on my way to Ihlara - reaching 98km/h on at least three occasions only to
find that my bike cruelly would not go any faster! Having reached Ihlara in around ninety minutes, I had left myself five hours to walk the entire length of the gorge (14kms) and then take the final dolmus of the day back to the start.
The first thing that struck me about the gorge - other than the fact that despite carving a giant gash through the otherwise dead-flat surrounding countryside, no sign of the gorge could be seen until I was virtually on top of it - was that as beautiful and impressive as it was, it was actually no different to any other gorge in any other country. Suddenly it occurred to me that this was quite a peculiar thing to do - to come to a place as geologically unique as Cappadocia, and then spend my final full day exploring a gorge that could just as easily be located in Australia, Germany, or anywhere else for that matter. Nevertheless I was glad to be spending the afternoon in such a scenic and relaxing place; and if anything it made a nice change from the non-stop bombardment of fairy chimneys of the previous three days... after which
the novelty of seeing giant erect penises carved in rock by a mischieveous mother nature was almost in danger of wearing off!
After spending an enjoyable afternoon walking the length of the gorge and then clambering around the rock-cut Selime Monastery, I took a typically overcrowded sweatbox of a dolmus back to Ihlara and hopped back on my motor scooter for the trip back to Göreme - and was finally able to crack the elusive 100km/h mark after gathering speed on a rare downhill stretch! No sooner had I made it back to Göreme than I was on my way back to Akatepe Hill to catch the last of the day's sunshine. And whilst waiting for the sun to sink slowly towards the horizon, I couldn't help looking up at the plateau behind me and thinking 'that Turkish flag on top doesn't look too far away - I wonder if I could make it up there before the sun goes down?!?'... and fifteen minutes later there I was standing all alone on the highest point in Cappadocia (at least in the vicinity of Goreme) watching another wonderful sunset, as my time in Cappadocia drew to a close.
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Geoff
non-member comment
great!
Some of the best blogs I've found. I read your Swiss, Italian and Turkish trips. I've been to Cappadocia, and next year it's Dalyan and Oludeniz, then Switzerland.