Fez Bus: Sector 7 – Egirdir to Cappadocia

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And so onto Cappadocia, a region of Turkey famous for its amazing landscape (parts of Star Wars were filmed there) - there will be plenty of pics to follow! We travelled along the route of the old Silk Road, the trading route that used to exist between Europe and Asia, and we got the chance to stop at some of the caravanserais that still stand on the route. These were stopping points every 20-30km along the route, to allow the camels to rest, and to allow for trading along the way - the one we visited was in near perfect condition, and it was cool to see it the way the traders would have seen it all those centuries ago.
We stopped for lunch in Konya, a large city in the heart of the Anatolian plain, and a very conservative religious Islamic city as well. This made for an interesting lunchtime for us, as there was only 1 restaurant in the whole of Konya which served food for tourists during Ramadan -and it had another tour group in there when we arrived. This meant that 4 of us had to sit outside to eat, while the fasting residents of Konya gave us evils as the passed by. One old gent in particular was really giving us the big stare, and I dread to think what evils he was wishing on us, but luckily we were saved by a table coming free inside, and we gratefully grabbed our cutlery and dived in for lunch.

The rest of the journey passed pretty uneventfully, and it was early evening when we arrived into Goreme, where we would be based for the next week while we explored Cappadocia and Eastern turkey. First impressions of Goreme were great - an amazing panorama over the town showed all the fairy chimneys and cave houses we were expecting, and the town itself was really cool, lots of cafes and shops, very bohemian actually, not what we were expecting from this part of Turkey at all.

But, no time to linger, it was a quick change and then off to Turkish night, to be treated to a feast of traditional dancing, food and all the booze you could drink. Now this night had been built up by our tour leader for weeks as the highlight of the whole circuit, and so it turned out to be. The night started with some Dervish dancing, quite a sombre and moving part, as this is part of their religion, as they spin in order to bring themselves closer to god, and it was impressive to watch these guys spin for 5-10min and then just stop on the spot, no swaying, falling, etc - very cool. The beer, wine and raki then started flowing, the folk dancers were fantastic, getting the whole crowd up dancing and there was even a Turkish conga. Everyone was having a great time, and then the bit we had been warned about - the belly dancer. This was the real crowd participation part of the evening, and the Turkish guy who took us to the night had already promised that I (Colin) would be going up - and of course, I was picked, along with about 8 other guys, to be put through our paces.
Now, by this time I was past caring, and decided to go for it - and that’s as much as I’m saying. There is video evidence, which Jen has on her phone, but we won’t be able to upload this until we get back to the UK, but fear not, you will all get a chance to see the fat lad belly dance at some point!

What you won’t get to see though, is the hangover I suffered the next day - it lasted until about 6pm, and the joke was I was that much of a Turkish ruin that people would pay 20 lira to come in and see me - it was not pleasant...but I have found a great remedy in the form of claypot chicken. It’s a casserole which is cooked in a sealed terracotta pot, which you break open at the table - its the best chicken we’ve had in Turkey (and believe me, they have a lot of ways to cook chicken in Turkey!). And it was an early night then, in preparation for our balloon ride the next day...

...this involved a 4:30am start, in order to get everyone to the launch site, balloons up, etc, as near to the dawn as possible. We were a bit worried we wouldn’t actually get into the air, as it had rained the day before (the first rain Goreme had in 4 months!!), but our worries were unfounded, and we got airborne eventually, and it was worth the wait - we were in the air for an hour, but we took about 80 photographs in that time! To see the Cappadocia landscape from the air is to get a real sense of how incredible it is, and we also got to see local farms and irrigation valleys, places you wouldn’t get to on the ground. Our pilot, Mike, was also really good, giving us plenty of background info, and also knowing when to just let the scenery do the talking - in fact, the balloon company really run a slick operation, realising how much of a once in a lifetime thing it is for most people, and we can really recommend them if anyone goes to Cappadocia. Although the landing was one we wouldn’t want to repeat - the field we landed in was pretty hard-baked clay, and we landed with quite a thud, twice, which kind of broke the magical spell which had been cast up to that point, but it was all part of the adventure.

(NOTE: We have put some of the best photos from the balloon ride into a separate blog entry, and with a few links to more details about the balloon company and scenery - enjoy!)

We then spent the evening having a meal and drinks with some fellow travellers from the Fez Bus, as most people were all going off to different destinations over the next few days, ourselves included - we were heading through to Eastern turkey for 3 days, to climb Mt Nemrut and see the giant statues at its summit, visit the birthplace of the Prophet Abraham, amongst other strange and interesting places, then back to Cappadocia...

(we’ve put all the Mt Nemrut & Eastern Turkey pics in separate blogs, but back to Cappodocia for now)...

After returning from Eastern Turkey, we had another couple of days left in Goreme, so we booked another tour to take us around a bit more of the sights around Goreme, before we left that night to head back to the coast and Marmaris, to meet up with Colin’s mum and dad, who were coming out for a couple of weeks.

The tour was great, taking us to the Ilhara Gorge, a beautiful 18km walk (of which we only did 4km!), we checked out cave churches (with frescoes which looked suspiciously like South Park characters...), a cathedral carved out of the mountainside, underground cities where Christians used to hide from the invading Muslim hordes. These underground cities could hold up to 2 thousand people for 3 months at a time, and its reckoned there are about 150 of these dotted all round Cappadocia, and 35 are open to the public - not recommended if you’re claustrophobic though!

And then we were whisked back to Goreme, with time for a little last minute shopping, a change of clothes, and then on with the backpacks again, and off to the Otogar to catch an overnight bus to Marmaris, for 2 weeks of sun and sea again - can’t wait!

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